DIY , Stillen Header with Berk HFC
 

I finally received my Berk HFC sometime ago and I was waiting for this weekend to actually do the job since I have a 4 days week-end .

This is a real DIY that could be done by anyone that never done something like this , but be prepare , its very very time consuming ,,, did I said very ?

Right now I have about 7 hours and around 50% done ,that include getting the car jacked on 4 stand in my driveway , some beers , some break and lunch time !


here we go !

I love challenge so I started on the driver side right away !
I suggest you to remove the stock CAI and unclip the cable that goes to the starter that come from the left to the right in front of the engine .. it will give you just a bit more space to play with ...
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4021506001.jpg


no pic for this but ,
Remove the steering coupler from the
steering shaft. Note: make sure the steering shaft
does not turn when disconnected. If shaft is turned
360 degrees VDC/ traction control will not operate
properly.



get those heat shield ! actually you will not be able to remove the heat shield , you will have to let it there and just place it somewhere in there , then get the lower heat shield , you will have to look around under the car where to see them and use a ratchet wrench !
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4021204000.jpg

unplug the sensor from the header that is in the back under some tubbing *it was quite hard to get to it till I go under the car and see where the cable is clipped to the rear of the engine ... unclip the cable , that will give you about 1 more inch of free play to get the plug out !
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...have-break.jpg


-I do not have picture for the next time but its quite easy ,
just unbolt the OEM Cats on both side and remove their sensor , leave the Cats on the Y-pipe, that will somewhat hold the header/HFC in place when you get the header bolts off .




those are the tools I used to remove the header bolt
note the ratchet wrench , it will save you some time ! and there is another weir angled wrench , it helped me to break-off one of the header bolt.
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...olt-header.jpg

the first easy bolt
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...olt-3-mins.jpg
another easy bolt , with the ratchet wrench
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...ure12922-a.jpg
who said there wasn't any place to work on the driver side ?
see my arm does go to it .... hehe joking... its was a pain in the ***
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...g-its-pain.jpg

the last bolt from under the car
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...-under-car.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...-under-car.jpg

when done ,
you can remove the OEM Cat from the Y-pipe then get them both off !
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4021623000.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4021624000.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...e12915-doh.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...ader-maybe.jpg


wrapping time
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...aping-time.jpg

tomorrow is another day !
more to follow !

all wrapped and ready to go
temporally install a bolt at the Y-pipe to the HFC to hold them in place while you install the bolts on the header
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031053001.jpg

now that damn plug that I had some difficulty yesterday , I decided to sit on the radiator and get my arm in the back of the engine to reach by behind the plug and have access with with my right hand on the plug at the same time . it was quite easy and don't forget to put back the cable in 2 of his retaining clip in the back
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031114000.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031111000.jpg

that is the only bolt I was able to use the ratchet by under the car , every other bolt was done with the ratchet wrench
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031307000.jpg
I barely had to use that one ... but its always nice to have around.
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031122000.jpg



The passenger since was soo much easier than the drive side , I'm not kidding everything was fast , took less than an hour to have it removed and pretty much the same with the install ,
I used the same tools for the driver side , so use your imagination if one doesn't work but surely the other one will work better.

http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031430000.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031516000.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031624000.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031814002.jpg

ready to be installed !
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031623000.jpg

a odd place where to have access to the header bolt , the one closest of the passenger side the bottom one.
I had to get right by the wheel with extension and swivel then everything went quite well !
http://www.the370z.com/members/megan...4031503000.jpg


OK here a tip if you want to avoid a bad situation that happened to me this morning .
On the driver side where I started first , when I removed the header , I reinstalled one of the stud back to the engine head and it wasnt screwed in correctly and was not straight , I installed the header with a bit of difficulty because I never saw the stud was not straight , I bolted 3 nuts ( 45 mins ) then when I got to that stud , I was like OH %$#! ....

I must say I wasn't happy , I removed back the header (another 45 mins ) then processed to get that stud back the way it should .. there is now about 1/3 of cross threaded because last night I didn't pay attention to it , it was hard to screw it back-in to compare with the 3 others one that came off .
It took me 80 mins yes , 80 mins to finally have that stud back in properly .
Then on the passenger side the last stud happened to be the same situation but I got it right at the beginning < I made sure it get screw back in correctly ,

Nice job, doing my headers shortly, how does she feel? and sound?

I like the sound it gave but it could be better, I still have the OEM Y-pipe and catback ,but that will wait for a while . the hard part is done and I will be going on a dyno tune in about 2 weeks .

I had mixed feeling on the stillen but decided to give it a go anyway.
The good part is that gave me a good learning experience on the car ! :)

How much faster does it feel?

I wouldn't say its faster because the sound make it look like it.

it will be when I get on the dyno in 2-3 weeks that I will really see the difference.