It just keeps pulling!

Justin FILLY got me a video of him driving the car! The good bit is towards the very end if you are impatient, but, geez! Remember: This is open header, no exhaust!

It just KEEPS PULLING! 

And . . . Justin actually drove his dang Civic!

FINALLY, even though this video is REALLY short, listen to that engine! I lubs it. I lubs it a LOT!

1st gear pull

He's actually got to have the header orientation tweaked a bit, which is why he hasn't been bashing it on it all the time. The end of the header currently hits the center tunnel. (Which is why I don't like not having a car to mock up things!) He's got a great shop to take it to and I am sure that the welder there will do a great job of putting the "stinger" right where it needs to be. 

IT LIVES!

It LIIIIIVES!

Justin finally got some revving on camera! Skip to 1:20 for the good stuff:

The "Bisi Beaver" header bouncing off the launch control

It sounds like it hit puberty! heh

I don't think I've heard another Honda 4 cylinder with that much of a baritone to it. I like it a lot!

Justin's "Bisi Beaver" beader. (His name, not mine, if there are any lawyers reading this.)

And now for something that is a total tease, because Justin is a goober:

Justin's "Bisi Beaver" header idling. And nothing else. Because he sucks at video. LOL!

Justin apologizes for the sucky video. He thought he had revved it on camera, but didn't. He will get a better video tomorrow, so check back in the evening tomorrow.

Justin also reports that so far, it sounds completely different (It sounds quiet in the video because his phone sucks) and that the throttle response is "mega better!" so far. Mega better. Yeah. I like the sound of that.

It's DONE! Now the shipping adventure begins.

Justin got back to me with measurements on where to place the O2 sensor bung, so X marks the spot! I center punched the point, as anyone who has tried to drill round stuff knows that if you are doing it by hand, the bit will walk if you don't!

Here it is opened up to 3/8":

I used the bun to trace out how much it needed to be opened up, and it was a bit off from vertical:

I used my hanging grinder and an 1/8" carbide cutter to open up the hole thusly:

Looking good!

I happen to love this clamp! It isn't cheap, but it is very versatile, as it has swivel pads and is tension adjustable, so it will clamp down on anything from the thinnest sheet to up to about 4"!

http://www.lockjawpliers.com/ They are built very, very well. Better than real Vise-grips and faster to use. (Don't get me wrong, I still have and still love Vise-grips, but these things are just that much better!)

Here's the bung welded on:

And here is the finished product in all it's glory:

I had forgotten to get pics of the rest of the collector to downpipe welds:

I actually didn't like how the SS of the original header was welding. I just did the best I could. The good thing is that Justin isn't going to be driving this on the street anymore, and with the new support, I don't think there will be any cracking issues, at least where I welded on the header. heh

I'm getting better, but, still have consistency issues that I have nearly figured out:

Really concentrating on what was going on, I discovered that I am simply not rotating the torch enough. On small diameter pipe, the motion needed to keep the weld puddle consistent seems REALLY exaggerated, but it isn't. Once I realized that, my welds immediately became more consistent and regular. I will be using these techniques on my next several manifolds.

Now, how does one ship something so dang funky? Creatively and carefully. I wasn't going to find a normal rectangular box that would just work, so I made my own from Ikea desk box halves.

Here's the bottom piece, and me trying to figure out how best to do this:

I figured that my best bet was a clam-shell case, so, I started taping in foam supports to keep the header of the sides of the box and to keep it from pocking through, and also bent and taped the remainder of the box up in the back to make part of the tall side:

I stuffed in more packing to keep things in place in case of the worst disaster (I KNOW how "stuff-chuckers" work!):

Then I basically did the same thing for the top, and got it all connected and taped up:

I added sides to the box and then scribbled "THIS SIDE UP" on the top, and a few snarky comments on the rest of the box:

The lady at the FedEx office got a total kick out of the box and the attempt to have the box stay upright. She even had me plaster the box with "THIS SIDE UP" stickers that were bright read. She was laughing the whole time at my snarky asides on the box, and even offered to use some really wide packing tape to reinforce the corners, since she really liked the box. She also said that since it was a bit awkward and out of the ordinary (most of the weight is on the wide side), along with the placement of the address sticker and the "THIS SIDE UP" stickers, she thinks it has a good chance of getting to Colorado intact. We shall see . . . If the worst case happens, I declared a value of $499, which is more than enough to make a new header from scratch . . .  (I'm sneaky like that). 

Justin's header is nearly complete!

Lots of pics. I am beat. I will add in filler that most people don't read later. Pics.

Promised filler!

Here is my A6 block, head and pan on a stand, which is used for mock up!

End view of the Bisimoto header, with the collector trimmed to near final dimensions:

I finally got a good shot of the dang goilette, however that is spelled! I really, really dislike the poor craftsmanship exhibited. Blech:

 I am SURE this is like this or worse in most of the headers that have been sold. Look what less than 10 minutes with a small grinding stone did:

From another angle:

As you can see, it is much, much cleaner now. I didn't bother to take pics after I flap-wheeled everything inside and around the edges to clean up the burrs and smooth things out  and clean everything up for welding on the new downpipe. 

Checking fitment:

Nice and straight!

Compared to my "big" collector:

I had to come up with an easy way to hold things in place to asses the level and mark of any final trimming I needed to do to get the downpipe and the collector properly fitted up. I used some nearly useless for welding .023" 309 welding wire (way too thin for anything I will ever do, as I found out) and clamped the loop in place to keep it adjustable:

It worked very well!

Here's the downpipe fitted to the collector, held on with blue tape until I could tack it more permanently:

Round to cloverleaf? Yup, but it isn't that much of a problem as you'll see soon!

Tacked solidly in place!

Ickiest gap:

Another view and the other sides:

How does one make odd shapes fit? Beat the piss out of things!

I forgot to get pics of the welds, but you'll see them in the next blog post, which will be confusing to anyone reading my blog normally, from top down. heh

Anyway, test fitting:

Very good pan to downpipe fitment, but, the angle was off:

What to do? Use Math. Yes . . . I used math. I figured out that it was about 9* off from level (basic trig) then I did some more basic trig to figure out how much I needed to slice on a diagonal to rotate and weld the cut piece on to get it back to level. I didn't get pics of the whole process since most of it involved two hands, a knee and a magical metal fairy. I did, however, manage to lay down some much improved beads!

Now it is looking like it might be just right!

Justin needs his header ASAP, so I did a quick and dirty support using the stock exhaust hanger. Simple and effective is the name of the came:

And, showing that it is now level:

Oh. Yeah. I found my good camera, finally. It was in a really stupid place, and totally my fault. At least I can take decent pics now. Enjoy. 

Finally a halfway decent photo to show some progress.

I'll admit it: right now, I am better with the thick stuff than thin tubing, but, look at this:

The reverse cone is the last piece I've welded in that pic. I love this stuff!