Updated: 7 year review (page 2) of cheap 'eBay' headers

As some of you may recollect, ever since I purchased my 996, I had the gaskets between the manifolds and cylinder heads slightly weeping. Wasn't an MOT failure but you could hear it. Also the manifold bolts replicated remains of the Titanic. So I decided on purchase some shiny new stainless steel ones off eBay and with a voucher code I had came to £106 delivered. I'd read a few posts about 'eBay headers' and Chinese cr4p, lost horses, etc. and thought - what baloney!, for £100, I'll try my luck and put them to the test. My original write-up is here: http://911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=97476 But now I've had them on just over 12 months, I thought I'd do a bit of feedback. Time: 12 months 10 days Mileage: 9,133 Location: West Pennines - where it rains, rains, rains, rains & rains (+ 2 weeks on the French Riviera & a long weekend in Wales) I'll not waffle on about the 'no noticeable difference in power, noticeable difference in much more low end torque & better sound', but more on condition. I've had no issues with them. Even though they were a bit tricky to mate up with the cats and my mechanic suggesting I may get a slight weeping between the joints, I've had no problems whatsoever. The nice shiny stainless surface finish is no more and they are now starting to replicate the looks of the original manifolds. No cracked welds or any serious signs of degradation around any joints. Replacement stainless steel bolts have some light surface rust on but more oxide dust than rust. I'll be keeping an eye on those as they're the main culprit of depression with regards to manifolds. Verdict - The old ones needed removing anyway (to fix the weeping) so I had to bite the bullet on Labour and the originals didn't look too clever (one of which got a blow hole created in it whilst removing), so for £106 seemed a no brainer compared to something identical in looks and claims for £570: http://www.design911.co.uk/fu/prod1560/Exhaust-Manifold---Header-Equalength-DesignTek-Porsche-996/ If I was to do it again, yes, exact same route. They may not last a 5th of what the £570 ones do, but at the time (and even now) I couldn't justify spending £570 on an item I can get (that looks identical) for £106, especially when the labour content was so high. Anyway, just a couple of snaps so you can see for yourselves: New: and now after 12 months of rain, salt, snow & sun:

I believe "Cocao" is this season's in colour.

I was thinking about taking the plunge and getting a set but was unsure on their quality / durability. Thank you for sharing your experience.

ps. Car lives outside on my drive 12 months of the year, come sun, rain, hail or snow. Also gets used daily all year.

Thanks for sharing! i know you didnt want to focus on the performance aspect as it would be perceived and not tangible but out of curiosity did you feel any improvement with these in terms of driveability

Low revs in 6th gear. I can easily (not that I do) drive up hill in 6th around the 28mph mark. Something that wasn't achievable before. But some may say - 'that's because your originals were leaking'. Top end - I didn't notice any difference. The sound was also a notable difference - more of a growl.

Interesting to see what happens to stainless when it's gets hot. It seems to be worse next to the engine which makes sense.

:thumb:

As a newbie it is easy to get suckered into 'it must be oem' in this case the evidence is there, keep your money in your pocket.

With Porsches, over time it can be a case where actually you really want anything but OEM. The battery is the classic example, but there are a lot of parts out there that are both cheaper and of the same or better quality than what was bolted on at the factory back in the day (particularly with regard to things like suspension and brakes) :thumb:

It's a shame this is opinion only and not backed up by empirical evidence. The only dyno evidence I'm aware of, which I know you don't accept Alex, indicates a 10 bhp loss with headers that look visually identical to yours. NA cars are extremely sensitive to header design - merge point, gas velocity, pipe diameter etc - and unless the Chinese manufactures just struck lucky and found a gaping hole in power Porsche missed, I'd stick with the standard headers. Look nice and shiny, though.

opcorn:

Back to back, same car, same conditions? :?:

I wrote the review because when I fit them, some members told me they wouldn't last 12 months and all the welds would crack. Ididn't write it to prove/disprove anything to do with power. I also got told before fitting that they wouldn't fit - not the case. Anybody who thinks copy manufacturers 'get lucky' are misguided. They buy the genuine item, reverse engineer it and then manufacture their own. Saves them a fortune on development costs and enables them to sell them so cheap. Bit like indys doing cheap LTT jobs when Hartech did all the development. Anyhow - each to their own. I wouldn't hesitate fitting these again if the need arises. :thumb:

The guys testing was seriously flawed. He was even swapping parts inbetween tests that weren't part of his trials. No real structure to what he was doing and no consideration to all inputs that would affect his results. Anyone with recognised quality credentials would laugh his results out the room.