Stainless Steel Headers from eBay

[02Les]

Exactly.

Having worked in China on/off for the past 20 yrs or more, I have seen a huge change. As Ray says, it is a matter of QC supervision, which is true for any Country.

I'm currently in India and we have equip't that has been manufactured in India, China, Italy and the US. Thus far we have had the least trouble with the Chinese manufacture. QED.

Repercussions ;-)

It's just a matter of proper QC at the manufacturing stage. Sometimes more easily said than done!

That said, very few M10 headers will net a performance gain. Best bet may still be a tii exhaust manifold.

And the ebay seller doesn't know his product, suggesting it will work with a stock cat.

As you were!

Cheers,

Ray

polished = china, that's why no one is buying them.

Andrey, if you look enough you'll see a lot of good things come out of CHINA, to discount them that way just shows ignorance. As long as there is sufficient oversight on the item being produced there then there is not much problem.

What does get to be a problem is when a PERSON (not a country) decides he wants to try and make as much money as possible and cuts corners in places that he shouldn't. Uses usually thinner gauge steel (the steel itself might be high quality, just very little of it.) and sells on ebay with little chance of reprocutions when things go wrong.

[Guest Anonymous]

Why buy that one?

I'd buy one from Tom at 02again. http://www.02again.com/?page_id=24 Might as well buy from a forum member. And it's cheaper.

I read the ad and all I see is ceramic coating and no mention of stainless steel. I must be missing something. Is the stainless coated?

[ought2]

Yes

[andrey]

Fair enough, but my advice is not to take the risk if you have domestic choices available, the polished exhaust stuff is often a sign of trouble. Quality in China varies of course (GM and others source all sorts of parts there) but I'm personally not willing to waste time and money finding out if polished exhaust part X is one of the decent parts or not. I've definitely seen quality stuff come out of there though, and yes it requires strict QC and good communication or you wind up with the stuff made in someone's back yard.

On the other hand I had my friend's shop make some stuff for the 02 including a stainless steel exhaust (no header though, I'm fine with the stock manifold, our 02 doesn't have any performance modifications to justify it really). One cool thing he did is a single-piece strut bar (works a lot better than the multi-piece like in the photo above) and an all-aluminum radiator:

http://namelessperformance.com/products/bmw/16022002

...the photos are kind of so-so because they're from our junky car but the parts turned out great No more exhaust rattles (the stuff on there was literally falling off) and no more cooling issues. Now on to fixing electrical problems and other neglected bits of the car...

[Guest Anonymous]

Hmmm. Wonder if anyone makes a red tip for my Hirschmann that is coated with ceramic (for superheterOdyne AM heat retention)? lol

[esty]

I'm sure it looks cool

there you go...you hit the nail squarely...i've almost, a hundred times, bought one just to dress up the engine bay and still may...i'd bet one of my o2's that anyone that looked at all my polished aluminum [done in mississippi BTW, not china] under the hood of my 76 would be wow'd

it's a matter of choice and what you want, not what's best for you...we did what others felt was best for us when we were kids...now, that we earn our own $'s and have way cool toys, we can buy shiny chinese crap if we want...

and, why does whatever we buy for our cars necessarily have to make for better performance or be lighter weight...can't we just buy crap because we think it's pretty...or just because we have the money to be foolish....comprende sabe?

and does the stainless exhaust sold by a prominent american vendor really, i mean really add any performance gains to the car...i don't think so...and if you haven't seen one, it's shiny as hell from the header to the exhaust tip and in my opinion, now, finally owning one, i can only say it's the biggest piece of crap you could blow your money on...it fits like shit, you can't do anything to stop the constant rattles and for the price, i'd want the car to at least give back something for the $'s spent...because it looks so bitchin, we're thinking about making it into a side pipe...at least it would get the attention one would expect from such a work of art when we drive down the road...the stainless exhaust system is like a pair of drop dead sexy & expensive panties...i'm the only one that knows i'm wearing them

with a shiny chinese header you just raise the hood to show off...you don't have to convince your friends lay on the cold, wet ground to get a peak of your muddy exhaust pipes to try and impress them....

[ought2]

I'll pass that along to R&D!

[nicktahoe]

Bahahahaha!!

[02again]

Decisions decisions. At 02Again we also use stainless steel but what you'll find is attention to detail that takes time the others don't spend to make sure interior transitions are smooth etc. Then we use a ceramic coating which keeps the heat flowing out the exhaust, minimizing engine compartment temperatures and increasing volumetric efficiency. Then we take it one step further and coat the downpipe as well. To top it off we include New studs and copper plated lock nuts with OEM quality gaskets (not from the orient). And just to keep customers smiling we throw in a free tshirt. And by the way we ran dyno tests back to back with the stock tii manifold on a stock tii and found about a 7 to 10% increase in power and torque.......icing on the cake

[ought2]

Decisions decisions. At 02Again we also use stainless steel but what you'll find is attention to detail that takes time the others don't spend to make sure interior transitions are smooth etc. Then we use a ceramic coating which keeps the heat flowing out the exhaust, minimizing engine compartment temperatures and increasing volumetric efficiency. Then we take it one step further and coat the downpipe as well. To top it off we include New studs and copper plated lock nuts with OEM quality gaskets (not from the orient). And just to keep customers smiling we throw in a free tshirt. And by the way we ran dyno tests back to back with the stock tii manifold on a stock tii and found about a 7 to 10% increase in power and torque.......icing on the cake

I was hoping to see you weigh in on this. I have the combo you offer and I'm very impressed. No regrets whatsoever!

[AceAndrew]

Decisions decisions. At 02Again we also use stainless steel but what you'll find is attention to detail that takes time the others don't spend to make sure interior transitions are smooth etc. Then we use a ceramic coating which keeps the heat flowing out the exhaust, minimizing engine compartment temperatures and increasing volumetric efficiency. Then we take it one step further and coat the downpipe as well. To top it off we include New studs and copper plated lock nuts with OEM quality gaskets (not from the orient). And just to keep customers smiling we throw in a free tshirt. And by the way we ran dyno tests back to back with the stock tii manifold on a stock tii and found about a 7 to 10% increase in power and torque.......icing on the cake

Good to see you in this thread. I really do enjoy some of the parts you make and was hoping you could satisfy my curiosity a bit.

In your header description it mentions the the headers are made not by you but by "Metal Concepts", who are they?

What is your professional background? Engineer? metallurgist? Always find it interesting as there are a myriad of people drawn to these cars (As evidence in the 'what do you do for a living' thread.)

[02again]

I am Metal Concepts. And my BMW car stuff is 02Again. It's all me. I have a BA in manufacturing from Fresno State. (way back in Jan 1976). Worked for the Navy for 17 Years in Production Engineering. Metal Concepts has manufactured in excess of 250,000 bicycle carriers sold all over the world as Traps. (still making them and they are distributed by Saris.com).

Tom

[AceAndrew]

Very cool, I think it would be a good idea to do a 'people in the industry' thread with the back grounds.

for example:

*** @ namelessperformance :

..............................

Tom @ 02again:

Manufacturing background for the navy

Jeff @ Ireland Engineering:

Metallurgy & Manufacturing

Blunt @ ...blunttech:

....... so on and so on.

Ed @ Groma Race Fabrication:

.............. blah blah

Perhaps it might be a bit tabloid-ish but a good read.

[nicktahoe]

This was definitely an interesting discussion; not exactly what I was expecting but I think it is always good to get people's opinions whether it be positive or negative. It does seem like a lot of people have VERY strong opinions about this part though which did surprise me. It seems like a lot of people are really pissed off about this/these parts which kinda threw me off but I guess thats cool. I never really thought this might turn into a debate about the levels of QC in Chinese/foreign manufactured parts, lol.

Personally, I'm very happy with this part. It may not be the most fantastically amazing header out there, I guess, but I am 100% positive it is better than a stock cast iron exhaust manifold for performance and looks. There were no fitment issues and I used OEM gaskets/new brass nuts and everything went together with ease.

The one thing that I will continue to love about these cars / this site is everybody's intense passion for these amazing cars. I'm not sure of many other cult cars that have this kind of following. I'm still relatively new to this game as I'm only a 26 year old mechanical engineer and this is my second 2002 (first was a '69 1602) and I can tell you this, it won't be my last.

Thanks again for the feedback all. Hopefully this isn't the last interesting debate I can help spark.

[bluedevils]

IMO, the best header updates: 1) factory tii manifold, possibly polished and honed, and/or 2) 02again header, very high quality product which simulates and perhaps betters the tii manifold. End of bs. Say NO to CHINESE garbage, pay a little more (or less), get the proper product for your baby. Support the local hobbiest/car guys, keep the money in US, slap big American Corp (=greed) on the face, they are the reason why we are fucked.