[Darth Martel]

I'd like to thank a few people before I begin. I'd like to thank fellow member Sledgehammer70 for his informative videos, in particular his video on jack points and jack stands video. http://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=452280. I'd like to thank fellow member oldman for his post about removing the exhaust manifolds. http://www.camaro6.com/forums/showthread.php?t=476665. And I'd like to thank Ted Jannetty from JRE and his staff in helping me with my project.

This project is not for those who lack patience and determination. It was not easy for me. I started on a Saturday morning and ended the following Friday. I worked full days Saturday and Sunday on it and then a few hours each night after work until done. I chalk that up to me being woefully out of shape as well as not having much experience doing these type of things. I took my time, thought about how to do things, tried them, and sometimes thought of new ways to do things. It was an odyssey.

First off, like oldman says in his thread, HAVE THE RIGHT TOOLS. I have an air ratchet and it was very helpful. You will need an assortment of extensions and adapters. The short 1 inch extension oldman discussed was indeed very helpful. I couldn't find a 1/4" flex head ratchet with 12" handle but, I made do with what I had. The 3/8" flex head ratchet was a must have item. Most of the time you'll be using either a 13mm socket or a 15mm socket under the car. Have both a deep well and a regular in those 2 sizes. If you read Stainless Works instructions, you'll see no mention of what size sockets you'll need. Instead they tell you the size bolt you'll be encountering, and NOT the head size of the bolt. Stainless Works directions are a general guide and really suck. They will tell you to use the sealant they send you in place of header gaskets. Just buy new gaskets. They're $8 or less a piece. Throw that sealant away. They will tell you to remove the O2 sensors while the exhaust is still in place. This is physically impossible to do. Remove the exhaust and THEN remove the O2 sensors, spray a bunch of PB Blast on each one and let it soak in before you use an O2 sensor socket and a breaker bar to break them free. That's a bit later though. I'll start at the beginning.

Before you start, go into the trunk and disconnect the negative lead from the battery. Stainless Works will have you start undoing bolts and nuts under the car but, I thought it smarter to disconnect everything in the engine bay before I even jacked up the car. First, remove your air intake. Then remove your engine cover. You don't need to remove the whole engine cover. You can just take off the two side covers. Disconnect the oil vapor lines that will be in your way. You don't want to damage them and you don't want them blocking your work area. Remove the bracket on the passenger side that blocks your access to the front spark plug and wiring. Cut all the zip ties in the area holding wire harnesses and coolant lines down. You can replace those later. Remove the dipstick bolt and pull the dipstick out. It'll feel weird to do but there are no other bolts holding it in. Yank it out. Now, remove the coolant overfill container.



The coolant line going into it can be tilted upward to prevent spillage with a zip tie. If you zoom in on the picture above you can see that's what I did. I would advise either clamping the hose off at the end or corking the end somehow. During the hours I spent working in the engine bay, I would still keep hitting that hose and coolant would come leaking out. I then drained out enough of the coolant from the overfill tank that none would leak out. I just draped it towards the front of the engine, out of the way.



You can then remove the spark plug wires and the spark plugs. I only removed the spark plugs from the driver's side. Oldman is correct and there's plenty of room on the passenger side that you can leave them. To remove the spark plug wires, I used a large set of needle nose pliers and made sure not to squeeze too hard and damage the housing but, twisted the connector around a little, then pushed the connector in towards the engine, twisted it, and then pulled it off. Once you get a couple done, you'll get the feel for it but, push, twist, pull off. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Once that was done, I loosened all the exhaust manifold bolts and took them all out but the front ones on each side. You could probably take them all out but, I didn't want them to be 100% free. You're now pretty much done with the top side. Now you can jack the car up and put it on jack stands.

The pinch welds are where you want to put the jack stands. There are several options out there for what to use to protect your pinch welds. Use whatever you think is best. I will kinda contradict Sledge here on the front jacking point. If you use a wide board to disperse the weight, you can jack the car up by the aluminum protection plate here.



I used a 16" piece of pressure treated 2x10. I put the board as far back as I could on the plate. Now, I'm not exactly sure how much I jacked the car up. I have a standard sized garage door and when my hood was open it was 2-3" from the garage door in the up position. I've read that you need 21" of clearance but, not sure from what point that is. Anyhow, jack up the front and put jack stands under the front pinch welds. Now jack up the back. I used this spot to jack up the back.



You don't need to jack it up as much as the front but make sure it's enough for you to crawl under comfortably. Now put jack stands under the rear pinch welds.

As I stated, Stainless Works instructions are kinda all over the place and are short on information on how to do things or how to do things in a sensible way. That aluminum panel that you used to jack up the front of the car, you now have to remove it and all the plastic trim pieces. There's like 12 bolts and 2 nuts holding the aluminum plate in place(13mm or 15mm). The plastic parts are 10mm, I believe. There's a whole bunch of those. I took the plastic pieces off and saw that the aluminum piece was dangling by a hook. The hook part is aluminum as well. I didn't have the car jacked up high enough to allow the aluminum piece to unhook. So, I simply used a pair of channel locks and bent the hook piece down enough so I could pull the aluminum piece off. Now, with all that off, you'll have more room to work and access the engine bay from below. Now, you can disconnect the connectors from the AFM motors towards the rear of the exhaust. You can choose to take the motors off now or take them off when the exhaust is removed. I took them off after I removed the exhaust. Go towards the front where the engine is and remove the bracket at the transmission holding the cats. Now remove the other bracket holding up the exhaust in the middle of the vehicle. I apologize as my memory isn't the best but most of the bolts and nuts are either 13mm or 15mm. Now go to the back of the car and jack the exhaust up slightly. Just enough to allow you to remove the hangers without having any weight on them. And there's that board I used to jack up the front.



There are 3 sets of hangers. 2 sets that look like this...



And one set at the rear before your tail pipes.





To remove the first 2 sets, squirt some WD40 on the rubber where the metal pushes through. Now work the rubber piece forward with your hand or with a pry bar. They should come off relatively easily. If they don't, use more WD40. The last set of hangers you'll need to unbolt. Again, these are either 13mm or 15mm. You'd think I would of made note of that since I knew I was going to do a write up.

Anyhow, the exhaust should now be free to lower. Lower the jack down but, don't remove the jack from under the exhaust yet. The cats are still attached to the exhaust manifold. Remember I said to leave one bolt on each side? Stainless works directions tell you to remove the cats early in their directions. This is impossible because the front driver's side 02 sensor blocks access to one of the cat bolts. However, once you lower the exhaust, that bolt is more easily accessible. You can now disconnect the cats from the exhaust manifold, remove the exhaust, and you can pull both sides of the exhaust manifold out from the engine bay.

At that point, I would generously spray PB Blast all over the O2 sensors and let it soak in.

To get the Stainless Works headers in place, you have to come from underneath. You also have to remove the steering shaft and the passenger side motor mount. These things sound worse than what it actually takes to do.



The steering shaft is just 2 bolts. Sorry, I don't remember the size socket needed. 10mm maybe? Use white out or a couple pieces of tape to mark how the steering shaft is situated. Remove the 2 bolts. Push upwards and then you'll be able to slip the steering shaft out of there.

Now there's a couple ways to take out the motor mount. It's actually 2 pieces. You can take it out as a whole or you can remove each half separately. I chose separately. There's half that mounts to the engine. And half that mounts to the frame. They are held together by an 18mm nut. With the exhaust manifold out of the way, the 18mm nut is easily accessible from the engine bay using a couple extensions. Once I removed that nut, I jacked the engine up. I used that same big board under the oil pan and I jacked it up from that point. Once the engine was high enough that the part of the motor mount attached to the engine cleared the stud on the lower motor mount attached to the frame, I removed the bolts on the bottom part with a swivel head ratchet, removed the lower part, and then removed the upper part attached to the engine.





I took these pictures while I was putting things back together btw.

Once the bottom piece is out of the way, it's easier to get to the top section.

These are the bolts for the top of the engine mount.







And there's one more bolt that's all the way up in that recessed part of the top piece of the engine mount. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of that.

At this point, you should remove the O2 sensors from the cats and install them on the headers now. It's easier to do it while you have the headers free. You can now install the stainless works headers. Be sure to use brand new GM gaskets. It's also easier if you have a 2nd pair of hands to feed the headers up through the bottom and hold in place while you get the gaskets in place and start threading the bolts. If you don't have a 2nd pair of hands, you can use a jack stand, provided you have one to keep the header in about the place you need it and then manipulate the gaskets and thread the bolts. Also, BE VERY CAREFUL while handling the gaskets as they are sharp and will cut your fingers. Wear gloves. Trust me on this. Don't tighten all the header bolts to spec at this point. Just hand tighten or tighten enough to where the headers won't move. Once both sides are in, you can replace the motor mount and the steering shaft. The motor mount is a bit of a challenge to put back. Remember I took it out in halves. I originally worked backwards and put the top half in. Put the lower half in. Then lowered the engine so I could replace that 18mm nut. Unfortunately, with the new headers in place, there is ZERO room to accomplish that. I had to jack up the engine again so I could have room and squeeze my hand through the tight space the new headers allowed me to ratchet that nut. I also had to remove the top half from the engine and let it sit on the bottom half so I could tighten that 18mm nut. There's a notch so it will seat correctly. The best move is to put the top and bottom pieces back together with that 18mm nut before you replace the motor mount and lower the engine. It would just be a bit of a challenge to shimy the motor mount into the appropriate position given the limited space you have. The lower portion is relatively easy to bolt down using the flex head wrench. The top portion is challenging but doable. The recessed bolt is the bitch of the bunch. The flex head socket wrench gave me the flexibility I needed though.

The rest is actually relatively easy. Once the motor mount is back in place and the steering shaft is back in place, lower the engine. You can now tighten the header bolts to spec (which is 17ft lbs). You can now reinstall the dipstick. You can see where it should go from the bottom. Just feed it through from the top and then you can put it in place. I used a pair of needle nose pliers to grip it firmly and pull it into place. From there, you put the other O2 sensors on the other exhaust pipes that will be going on. Put the O2 sensor extensions in place on the driver's side of the car and let them hang. You'll zip tie everything up when you're finished. Get everything into position under the car along with the clamps you'll need. After the headers, either the offroad pipes go on or in my case, high flow cats, then the lead pipes, then the xpipe. Once you get the xpipe on install the big exhaust brace. Stainless Works supplies spacers. They were needed to get enough clearance so the brace wouldn't rub against the exhaust. Just keep working backwards until you get the Stainless Works mufflers in place. Use the hangers to help you in getting everything in position. A little WD40 helped the rubber hangers back on too. Once everything is in place, start from the front and then tighten everything up. You can use an air ratchet to get things mostly tight but, you'll need to use a regular ratchet and some elbow grease to get everything tight as it should be. Tighten the cats (or offroad pipes), lead pipes, xpipes, tail pipes, and finally the mufflers. Pull on pieces and make sure they don't move or twist. You also need to go back to your O2 sensors and make sure the wires are zip tied up so they won't touch the exhaust and melt. THIS IS IMPORTANT. After all that and you're confident that everything is secure, you can now lower the car off of jack stands. Replace everything you removed in the engine bay. Spark plugs, wires, that annoying bracket that blocks the front passenger side spark plug, the coolant overfill, air intake. Zip tie the things down that you cut. And don't forget to refill your coolant overfill tank.

And now you can reconnect the negative lead to the battery, and fire that bad boy up. I also loaded my tune at that point but, not everybody will have a tune ready to go. You just removed the complete factory exhaust and installed a full Stainless Works exhaust system.

If anybody has any questions or comments. Feel free to add your input. I am NOT a professional mechanic or installer and don't claim to be. I just enjoy working on my own cars. This was a labor intensive job but, it's not something impossible for somebody with amateur mechanic skills. Just be patient and don't get frustrated. Preparation is half the battle. Good luck

[Dubchitts]

Thank you so much for this!

[CamaroLaval]

Wow amazing article !! Thanks

[DD goat]

Sounds like the motor mount is really the only b.....

[Darth Martel]

Pretty much

I did a lot of time wasting trying to do things that the Stainless Works directions told me to do though. Trying to disconnect the cats with the exhaust still on hangers was impossible because of that one bolt being blocked by an O2 sensor. I tried cutting the cat with a cutting wheel and then tried cutting the nut with a cutting wheel. Finally, it dawned on me to lower the exhaust and I'd have better access to the nut. Similar story with removing the O2 sensors. Attempting to do so with the exhaust still up on hangers is impossible. An O2 sensor socket and breaker bar physically cannot fit where the O2 sensors are. Thankfully, I didn't waste any time on trying to do that. I never removed an exhaust before either so, I had to figure out how to do that and how best to get the hard rubber hangers off the bar. There's a lot of small pieces to the puzzle that need to be figured out on the fly and for a low-experience amateur mechanic, it just takes time to do that. This is why I decided to do this write-up. If I can help you guys out so that you don't waste hours and hours trying to figure out how to get this all done, I'm glad to take one for the team and do it. I'm very happy with the system I installed so, I had no problem doing the work to get it all done.

Originally Posted by DD goat

Sounds like the motor mount is really the only b.....

[Dubchitts]

Originally Posted by Darth Martel

The coolant line going into it can be tilted upward to prevent spillage with a zip tie. If you zoom in on the picture above you can see that's what I did. I would advise either clamping the hose off at the end or corking the end somehow. During the hours I spent working in the engine bay, I would still keep hitting that hose and coolant would come leaking out. I then drained out enough of the coolant from the overfill tank that none would leak out. I just draped it towards the front of the engine, out of the way.

Clamping didn't seem to help any. It still just gurgled it's way up and over on me
If you clamp it, use hose clamp vice grips (Not sure of proper name) the kind with wide flat steel on the end. Or make your own with 2 large washers maybe. If I could do it over I would just zip tie and deal with it.

I ended up piercing my hose about 1.5-2" from the end where I clamped it. $75ish dollar fix for a $2 mistake. Gm won't let you buy just that little 10" piece, you have to buy the whole heater hose assembly.

If anyone knows the ID of that hose that would be much appreciated! I know it's preformed but it's on such a small angle I don't care for now, I'll fix it with oe parts when that hose is available by itself.

Thanks for any help and be careful!

[Darth Martel]

I had to move the overfill tank again when I changed plugs and wires recently so, I found some conical pieces that I used to plug the hose and mouth openings. Plugging works A LOT better than clamping off, I've found.

[Dubchitts]

Originally Posted by Darth Martel

I had to move the overfill tank again when I changed plugs and wires recently so, I found some conical pieces that I used to plug the hose and mouth openings. Plugging works A LOT better than clamping off, I've found.

Yeah I could see that working much better. Lol

[djfury05]

Can you fix the pictures please

[red_johnny]

Originally Posted by djfury05

Can you fix the pictures please

Ditto but I understand that requires going to a new photo hosting site. FYI anyone who uses photobucket please stop. Not only have they changed a lot in the past few years but now if you get a lot of views on your photos they do what you see here until you pay for the hosting.

[Darth Martel]

sorry guys, I haven't checked this thread in awhile and didn't know the pics were down. Photobucket was solid for several years. I had no idea they started charging. You'd figure I'd get an email or something. I'll fix this tonight.

[red_johnny]

Originally Posted by Darth Martel

sorry guys, I haven't checked this thread in awhile and didn't know the pics were down. Photobucket was solid for several years. I had no idea they started charging. You'd figure I'd get an email or something. I'll fix this tonight.

That's what I thought as well. I noticed it on one of my posts from the other day. I am switching but have been trying to pull off my photos for a few days now. The site fails to start compression so I can download my pics. A lot of my photos are from the course of about 10 years.

[chrest]

Originally Posted by red_johnny

That's what I thought as well. I noticed it on one of my posts from the other day. I am switching but have been trying to pull off my photos for a few days now. The site fails to start compression so I can download my pics. A lot of my photos are from the course of about 10 years.

i was able to pull about 90% off photobucket but keep freezing on the last 10ish%

What host is everyone switching to? I'm really irritated with photobucket. I've been using them for well over 10 years.

[red_johnny]

Originally Posted by chrest

i was able to pull about 90% off photobucket but keep freezing on the last 10ish%

What host is everyone switching to? I'm really irritated with photobucket. I've been using them for well over 10 years.

I moved to imgur.com Seems good enough so far but I only got like 5 pictures on it until I can transfer my photobucket stuff.