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Steve @ WEAPON_X · 12-05-2017, 10:47 AM

Hi all,

Often when shopping for parts, or anything really we tend to look for the best bang for the buck. Sometimes this works out really well, but as some of us might know this is usually not the case with car parts. I'm sure most of us have came across cheap ebay headers for a third, or even a quarter price of the brand names like ARH, Kooks, Stainless Works, Corsa, and so on.. We usually advise against anyone on buying these, because we hear of them cracking or fitment issues, and all that not so fun stuff. Not to mention, I think we should all be supportive of the big companies that invested a lot of time and money doing the R&D to develop these awesome products that we have available to us, while giving Americans jobs at the same time. I want to state that the focus of this post is not to bash the choice, but to instead bring awareness to everyone because it is likely we've all bought something because it was cheaper then later on regretted it.

We recently had a client bring his car to us for several upgrades. We installed the headers that were supplied to us by the client. The car was picked up after dyno and drivability tuning then later we received word that the car was acting up. After the car was brought back we started it and immediately confirmed that the issue was a pre o2 sensor exhaust leak, caused by the header warping. The pre o2 exhaust leak caused the PCM to interpret that the car was running lean because it was not reading the correct air/fuel values through the o2 sensors, in result the PCM commanded more fuel and actually caused the car to run excessively rich fouling the spark plugs. We did a compression check and leak down test and luckily there was no damage done besides the fouled plugs. In hindsight, I'm sure if he could go back and purchase brand name headers he would, these cheap chinese knockoff headers ended up costing more in the long run and now the car is back to stock manifolds. :(

Below I have pictures of what caused the issues and wanted to share them with everyone to prevent this from happening to anyone in the future.

12-05-2017, 10:47 AM	#1
Steve @ WEAPON_X Drives: Compound Boost 17' ZL1 (shop car) Join Date: Jan 2017 Location: Cincinnati Posts: 76	ADVISORY on buying cheap knockoff parts Hi all, Often when shopping for parts, or anything really we tend to look for the best bang for the buck. Sometimes this works out really well, but as some of us might know this is usually not the case with car parts. I'm sure most of us have came across cheap ebay headers for a third, or even a quarter price of the brand names like ARH, Kooks, Stainless Works, Corsa, and so on.. We usually advise against anyone on buying these, because we hear of them cracking or fitment issues, and all that not so fun stuff. Not to mention, I think we should all be supportive of the big companies that invested a lot of time and money doing the R&D to develop these awesome products that we have available to us, while giving Americans jobs at the same time. I want to state that the focus of this post is not to bash the choice, but to instead bring awareness to everyone because it is likely we've all bought something because it was cheaper then later on regretted it. We recently had a client bring his car to us for several upgrades. We installed the headers that were supplied to us by the client. The car was picked up after dyno and drivability tuning then later we received word that the car was acting up. After the car was brought back we started it and immediately confirmed that the issue was a pre o2 sensor exhaust leak, caused by the header warping. The pre o2 exhaust leak caused the PCM to interpret that the car was running lean because it was not reading the correct air/fuel values through the o2 sensors, in result the PCM commanded more fuel and actually caused the car to run excessively rich fouling the spark plugs. We did a compression check and leak down test and luckily there was no damage done besides the fouled plugs. In hindsight, I'm sure if he could go back and purchase brand name headers he would, these cheap chinese knockoff headers ended up costing more in the long run and now the car is back to stock manifolds. :( Below I have pictures of what caused the issues and wanted to share them with everyone to prevent this from happening to anyone in the future.