Had a set of XS headers put on my 02 TL-S this past Saturday. I had them installed by Excelerate in CT. Want to give him props, did a good job, worked through several issues that came up which I'll go into. Would recommend him to anyone in the area

1st - driving impressions
I've never been a believer in the 'butt dyno' as a few hp gain cannot be felt. However, with the headers I will say I felt a difference in acceleration once the VTEC range is reached. From a standing start, I get a real good chirp out of the tires on every 1-2 shift, which I did not get previously. I'm assuming this is an indication as well that more power is being made. But the accelleration is significantly improved in the high RPM's. I may hit the drag strip in a couple weeks when i'm up in NH, as that is the best way to tell how much power is being made (and how much faster the car is). Unfortunatly I don't have a baseline 1/4 time for this car, but i've raced a TL-S at the track before (with my old car) and actually still have the timeslips. He was in stock form, so I feel that would be a legitiment time to use as a baseline.

2nd - other impressions
When I purchased better bolts for the header to y-pipe connection, I bought the same size bolts as were supplied. Turns out they were a size too small, and therefore we could not tighten them as much as necessary. This I believe is where my small exhaust leak is coming from. When first tightened down, there were leaks around the exhaust gasket on both front and rear headers. With some tweaking (tightening) the leak on the front header was taken care of, however i'm not sure if the rear has been tightly sealed yet. I'm guessing that the headers were slightly warped, and therefore a tight seal is difficult to make. I didn't check them for 'flatness' prior to install, so I can't verify that they are in fact warped, but it seems a logical assumtion to make.

The leaking is minor enoguh that i can only kind of tell, and I don't think it sounds like a "leaky" car from outside, however I like things to be perfect and I'm going to replace the undersized bolts soon and hopefully that fixes the problem.

I have to say though, the power increase makes up for the small amount of leakage I have, as long as it sounds good from outside the car. hitting the high RPMs is awsome now, and if other people's dynos are correct (~25 whp gain) then my car is close to 300 ponies now (i won't dyno it, so i won't know, but it feels good to say!)

For $110 before shipping, these are a good deal. We'll see how they hold up and if I can fix the leaking, but its minor enough to live with IMO.

If anyone in the Manchester CT area is interested in seeing the headers, lemme know, i'm around and willing to demo.

 

I got larger bolts for mine. I would recomend getting them for yours. It will align the header up better. with the smaller bolts it can be off slightly and leak. get larger bolts and i bet the leak will stop 100%

 

Glad to hear you enjoy the header power. Yes, like I said, larger bolts will probably solve your problem. Unfortunately the bolts you brought were even smaller than the bolts XS supplies so although they were grade 8 they were still too small. When you buy the new bolts, nuts, and washers you should solve your very small leak. Like I said, if you need help re-installing the hardware give me a call and I can help you.

 

i just ordered XS headers(still waiting for them to get here)..should i go out and purchase larger bolts instead of using the ones that come with the package and if so does anyone happen to know which size bolts i should buy?

 

yes get larger bolts. I used M10x30

 

Update here in regards to the exhaust leak

Been under the hood for the past 1.5 hours or so listening, feeling, and smelling for the leakage. After removing the strut brace (bit of a pain...) i got my hands on the bolts holding the header to the engine block. I cranked them each down another 1/2 turn or so and voila! leak gone!!

So it seems that the bolts were just not tightened quite enough. They're really really hard to get to, especially with the strut bar still in place. But car sounds bangin now!

There is definatly some resonance though, its very very minimal, and i can only hear it if i pay attention and listen for it, so its by no means a bad resonance, but it is there.

Otherwise the car sounds really really good. Throaty, aggressive, but only under 3/4+ throttle. The rest of the time its almost as quiet as normal

 

 

I really want a set of these. I was told to replace the gaskets that came with them. Did you have any problems at all with the gaskets?

 

Use the 0-ring gaskets that come with the headers, but make sure to spend the extra cash for OEM head to header gaskets, the ones that come with the headers are made of cheap battery casings and/or other similar materials. The bolts should also be replaced with M10 x 30 or M10 x 40. I used 40 and they work just as well as the 30's Kris used, I just wanted the extra length for easier threading when installing hard to reach places. I went full stainless with mine .

 

I ended up using the existing gaskets that were used with the stock manifold. I'd mentioned leaking problems yesterday, however that has been solved (read above posts). The original gaskets seem to be fine.


Another separate update however:

Significant resonance at 1600 RPM and ~2800 RPM (more noticable at 1600). Fortunately it is only in a ~50 RPM range around that 1600, so it really doesn't bother me, but i'm still going to tweak a few things to try and either remove the resonace, or lower its response RPM to below 1000. I've got a couple ideas. If anyone else has done things to remove resonance however, lemme know what ya did!

I very much enjoyed my ride to work this morning though, as the leaking is gone and the car sounds awsome, minus the few moments of resonance. Power is really really nice too!!

 

I doubt that you needed to remove the brace to get to the bolts.. just a long socket wrench and 2" extension would've been good enough.. that is, unless your hands are huge
I'm surprised you get resonance , more than half the dudes that got the headers on here haven't had anything at all. Get bigger bolts like chris mentioned so that they fill the gap of the holes between the contact points (headers<->downpipe). There's probably some vibration/resonance could be coming from that also...just a thought
The old OEM head to header gaskets you have already are just fine also, no indications of burn-through marks but then again, spending the extra money would give you a better peace of mind I guess.

 

Removal of it wasn't an absolute necessity, however it made it easier to get my hands back there. More mobility is good, especially when i'm torquing down bolts. So yeah, I didn't need to, it was for "ease."

Having the resonance occur at very small and specific RPM ranges leads me to believe the exhaust "vibration" or pulsing of exhaust, happens to coincide with the natural frequency of the headers. Getting the bigger bolts on the header-to-y-pipe connection will probably help, that'll be done in a week or so. If that doesn't solve it I'm planning to get some small metal bars and clamping one or two to each pipe of the header. I figure this will effectively lower the natural frequency of the headers and hopefully get rid of the resonance.

 

I reused my stock maniflod gaskets as well. No issues. i didnt like the look of the gaskets that came with the header. I did use the oring ones though

 

Forgot to mention above, I also used the o-rings that were supplied by XS (ssautochrome). Seem to work fine.

 

I know some of the Megan Racing owners used some heat wrap on the flex pipe to mask the resonance sound.

 

I have DCsports headers but this may help you out. This past weekend I replaced the dcsports gaskets, completely blown out, with some copper ones, much better seal, and in the process got rid of almost all the resonance I had with my headers. Not because of the gaskets but because I took all the bolts out from the cat up to the headers and then put everything back together the way it wanted to sit. Oddly enough it was a little harder to get back together than when FSTTYMS1 put them on for me, but I think after wearing them in for a little while, a bend may have changed slightly and now since everything is tightened back up I have no consistent resonance in the 1500-1900rpm range.

 

The bends won't literally change, but the headers will seat themselves fully after being heated and cooled a few times, mainly in the area of where the manifolds connect to the A-pipe and where the A-pipe connects to the cat. I have the XS-Power header on mine and I experience zero resonance. The closest I have to resonance is the deeper tone I get right between 1500 and 2100 rpm that is slightly more noticeable than the rest of the powerband.

 

This is why you don't have any resonance, full stainless makes a big difference compared to ceramic coated headers.

 

he was talking about the flange nut and washers....

 

Well yes my headers are full stainless, but I was referring to the bolts in that post. I wonder if using a cheaper bolt would cause resonance though?

It's unfortunate that this has become such a hassle for people, even us XS-Power people had to go buy new bolts and gaskets to use the headers we purchased.

No complaints on the cheap prices though compared to stomptech.

 

So I ordered my XS headers today, and I would like to go get everything I need before they come. So some noob questions here.

I need new bolts. M10x30? what does that mean? and grade 8.
Do i need just one size of blots or do I need multiple sizes?

I also need OEM gaskets for the header to A pipe, and header to head? Can I reuse my existing ones, or should I go buy new ones?

thanks for any help guys!

 

you will need 6 bolts and nuts. The numbers i gave are size. M= metric 10mmx30mm (or 40mm)<--which is the bolt length) Grade 8 or 8.8 is the bolt strength. the higher the better

As for gaskets, the only ones you may want to purchase is the manifold to head gaskets. the 3 donut gaskets that conect the other pipes you use from the header kit that comes with it.

 

Can someone suggest where to get these headers for 2000 TLP? Can't seem to find the right ones on Ebay...

 

search for comptech headers for the TL, they XS ones will come up

 

search "comptech style" on ebay... i think they say for the CL or honda 3.0 but they fit the TL. and dont go and outbid ebay member shaqdeez... hes on this board. I out bid him last time because i didnt know he was a member of AZ.

 

Kris- thanks for the info... ill go pick this stuff up soon.
-Chris

 

 

Thanks for the tip. I searched "comptech style acura" on the Ebay XS Power store and this is the only listing I got.

"COMPTECH STYLE ACCORD V6 3.0L RACE HEADERS CL 6 SPEED"

These are for the manual. My TL is an automatic. The manual headers have a "jog" in one of the pipes. Anyone know where I can get the XS headers for the TL (automatic tranny)?

Thx!

 

Is it even possible to get these headers without the tranny "jog" in them? This isn't ideal for airflow, surely...

 

The manual headers fit the automatic but not vice versa.

 

They dont make them for just the auto. and the jog isnt that big so it wont hurt it

 

FYI fixed the resonance problem today. Turns out that when the forward hanger is used to attach the exhaust system to the car body, it must change the natural frequency of the headers/exhaust setup and causes it to resonate. I disconnected the hanger and voila, resonance is gone. Kinda strange, but at least it's fixed!

 

Just placed my order for some. No one out bid me on item #150020128194, my username is XzIpK.

 

Its gonna sound sweet with that AV6 Magnaflow catback

 

werd Cant wait to put that sucker on. Love the AV6's to this day

 

one of my neighbor is crazy about the sound, he is getting one even if he is on tranny num 4

 

just placed my bid on item Item number: 250021639675, appreciate if no one outbids...where did you guys get the new bolts ?

 

Got my bid in also, same as my user name here. Thanks for all the info and can't wait to hear them with the Apexi catback! Seems like just about all the auctions go for $110 anyway so people just have to wait they're turn as I did. No sense in paying more.

 

I going bid on a set XS power header some time next month so no 1 out bid me
also my maxin bid is 110

 

just won mine - got outbid on three other items