[GreyGhost702]

I've had AR Headers that had fitment issues on my '08 GT. Just because you pay the most doesn't mean the part will be perfect. Any part that's hand made, especially. Long story short, I ended up gifting those ARH's to a friend not long after, and bought a set of Pypes LTH's, which were Kooks knock-offs. They fit perfect and ran them for 5 years 'til I sold the car.

I have a set of $599 headers on my Camaro. Out of the box, had a flange issue on the LH header. Took them to a local machinist and had them squared up in an hour or two. He felt bad to even charge me $100 it was such an easy adjustment. Tipped the guy $50 on top of it for doing them right away. Had an exhaust shop weld a set of V-band's on the collectors and matched the mid-pipe. Another $120. So I guess you could say I'm in them $870. They're the best fitting headers I've ever installed, and I've removed and installed them twice now, solo. And they fit tight to the car so I'm not worried about speed bumps. I'd definitely do another set. But I may be premature, they've only got about 1,000 miles on them so far in total.

Nothing wrong dealing with a cheap/knock-off brand if you're willing to do adjustments as needed. It's just exhaust, in my book it's not a critical part, so I don't mind pinching pennies there.

@MHz, if you're putting so much labor into a cheap set of headers that they price out at a set of expensive headers, that's a FUBAR set of headers. I've ground the welds out of a set of BBK headers for a buddies SN95, trimmed the primaries, and rewelded them to the flange and it that didn't take more than 2 hours, beer included. It was very common for the BBK's to have fitment issues, and the usual cause behind most of those header fitment issues is tube length off the flanges being too long. At least, in my experience. It's not fun to take headers apart like that, but it's not a huge job either. The real bitch is when a primary bend wasn't made with enough or too much angle. It can be fixed, just won't be as pretty. Cutting into the middle of a run and welding in a new section sucks.