I don't intend to step on Green93's toes here as they were on his truck but...

Yesterday Jay351 and I went over to Green93's place and we helped him get his rebuilt engine with LCE Headers and cams back into his truck and bolted back to his engine mounts and bolted to the auto transmission. Jay351 and my helping out was also for a bit of reconnaissance as we were hoping for a guinea pig (Green93 in this case) to demo the headers up close so we could check out the routing and fitment for potentially laying down the $$$ for our trucks. The difference obviously is we both have manuals where as Green93 has an auto so we both figure that if it fits fine with an auto, a manual should be a snap.

In a nutshell after hearing some interestingly concocted swearwords getting the engine into the truck and hooked up to the auto tranny, the headers themselves fit pretty good and have pretty good routing considering how tight of a space there is to work with (I would say the picked probably the best routing possible for what space there is to work with - there's still gonna be a bit of bending various fuel lines farther away and insulating but that's gotta be expected), but the issue comes with the crossover routing. In a nutshell the tranny pan interferes with the flanges meeting up on either side. It sort of "teeters" on the bottom of the tranny pan. You can push one flange up to touch but it pulls the other flange away and vice versa (and when the flange meets the other flange it's not perfectly square either). I say if the pipes going up to the flanges were about 1 1/2" to 2" longer on either side this install would work. Other then that the headers look like they're very high quality and I like the stock flanges/gasket/heat shield, etc.
Green93 will be making contact with LCE to hopefully fix the problem.

Now if there are any manual guinea pigs out there post away!

 

Ya that was pretty disheartening when I heard you say that it didn't fit. I crawled under there tonight and it's that damn tranny pan. Everything lines up nice but you just can't get it high enough. I'll try and email LCE tonight and maybe get an answer quick. Hopefully they handle it well since I shouldn't have to "modify" an $800 part to fit in the application it was intended for.

Jason

 

where are the pics????

 

All the pics I have are in my other thread. No new pics from Sunday. I was too busy swearing at my Helicoil kit.

 

Hahah, quote of the day "Ive never done this before, im scared!"

 

I just went to the LCE website and looked up the kit. It says to contact tech for auto fitment issue. That wasn't there when I bought the headers...must have been added when they redid the website. At least they know that there is a problem and hopefully how to fix it. I don't want a hokey fix either. Would have been nice if someone would have asked if it was an auto once a problem arose.

Oh well...if you don't have to work for it, it's not worth it right?

Jason

 

You're right about that - I don't remember seeing that last line either on their site about contacting them for auto fitment so they just added it.

 

Pic's ?

 

Emailed them last night and no response yet. They seem to be very slow at answering emails. Maybe I'll have to get Monica to call tomorrow while I'm at work. I also asked about the 22re exhaust. Hope they have an answer. That exhaust would match my headers nicely.

Jason

 

Well LCE knows that there is a problem but as of yet it's not solved. They said they have a 3VZE auto in the bay right now doing a mock up and i would assume, designing an auto-specific crossover. Seems funny that they wouldn't try a 5spd and an auto to make sure there are no differences. Should be sorted out soon and I can continue on.

Jason

 

ha sounds like LCE to me! bunch off dumba$$ foffs if you ask me. i will never do buisness with them again after they destroyed my block. IDIOTS TERRIBLE SERVICE NO HELP DID I SAY IDIOTS ALREADY

 

Well it is a new product. It's expected to have a few problems. Things are getting taken care of though. The headers fit great though. And I expect that the crossover will too...once it's designed. If I had a 5 speed everything would have gone together without a problem.

Jason

 

Time to switch to a manual hehe

 

I do think it's pretty rediculous that they didn't figure this out before they unveiled their headers- the routing of the crossover for the different transmissions. But all we can do s hope they get their together and get Jason a proper crossover.

Hey Jason - one thing I would be curious about is you know how the flanges on the headers themselves that the crossover bolts up to are orientated a certain way - if they do send you a replacement/proper crossover - how can they guarantee those bolt holes will line up on either side? I'm not sure of the manufacturing process myself and if each crossovers flanges are made specifically for each set of headers, but it might be something to ask about?

 

Hehe...something else to worry about. I would assume though that they bend the headers and crossover with a robotic bender so everything should be exactly the same. Let's just hope that they have a jig or something that helps them orientate the flanges the same way every time. They did call Friday but we didn't have time to call back. Will find out on Monday what's going on.

Jason

 

I think you need to get your butt under the truck and start takin pics for these nice yotatech folks

p.s We are commin back over for the first firing, I want to hear a 3vze running on open headers!!

 

Yeah hey Jason - let me know if you need my stock exhaust for a while and I can drop off that extra gear lube as well and you can have a look at my vacuum hoses or take pics or whatever. Is your cat converter back yet from your Pa-in law?

Also don't forget to ask about that exhaust from LCE.

 

Audio Clip ?

 

Coed, that would be great if i could borrow the exhaust for a bit. I don't have the cat back yet but I'll be going over there tomorrow so if it's done I'll pick it up. I haven't done anything else since you guys were here. Been pretty lazy. As for the open headers, my father-in-law is trying to talk me out of it. Maybe he's right. Once it fires the first time I need to run it for 20-30 mins. That might be a little much for the other people in this townhouse complex. If I'm not too lazy I'll crawl under there with my camera and take some more pics tomorrow.

Jason

 

That was the greatest part for me in all the motors I have built and installed was to run those puppy's open header for break-in and then I get to drive to my buddies place to have the exhaust welded on Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa