I recently ditched my tired looking stock headers, 3" THDP and Turbonetics Deltagate and bought a set of stainless headers, stainless 3" downpipe and 46mm gate from TR Custom Parts. My original plans were go to with a set of TA headers, Turbonetics 45mm gate and appropriate downpipe. After spending a ton of money on the Vega during the off-season, though, funds were tight. After seeing the pics of the headers, DP and gate Mark sells, I decided to give them a try and save some money in the process.
The pics that Mark has on his website of the headers, DP and gate are exactly how my parts look. The parts on his site are NOT specially built to look great just for advertising pics. They are an accurate representation of the parts I received. They look great! Very nice welds, no slag in the tubes and the ports/bolt holes lined up exactly with the supplied FelPro 1400 exhaust gaskets. Everything looks as good as parts costing twice as much.
The install only held one surprise, which turns out isn't much of a surprise. After mounting the right side header and dropping the turbo on it's flange, I noticed the turbo didn't want to sit flush. The compressor housing was coming in contact with the heater hose fitting that's cast on the water pump. I originally thought this was a major screw up as I have never encountered this issue before. I contacted Mark on the issue. He in turn contacted his supplier and started a thread here on TB.com to see if anyone else has had this happen. Keep in mind I have a T-72 on my T which has a compressor housing thats around 8" in diameter. According to a couple members here and the person Mark contacted, this can be and issue with other headers as well when turbo sizes get around the 70mm and bigger range. The fix is either take some material off of the water pump fitting or remove the fitting entirely, fill the hole and install a fitting where it's more convienent. I opted to take some material off.
15 minutes with a die grinder and the 72 sat flush on it's flange. All in all, not a big deal. I applied some black RTV to the fitting and a little to the inside of the heater hose, slipped the hose over the fitting and tightened the clamp. Done deal.
The rest of the install went pretty smoothly. Two holes in the downpipe's flange needed to be clearenced with a drill bit in order for the mounting bolts to thread straight into the turbine housing. This took all of about 1 minute to perform. After the holes were clearenced, the downpipe went on without issue.
The trans lines need to be pushed to the side a few inches in order to make room for the (two piece, v-band) crossover. I intend to take it a step further and add clamp-on heat shield (Jeg's part number 893-11600) just to keep as much heat away from the trans lines as possible. The heat shield is $23 and is well worth the piece of mind. I would have paid another 25 bucks more for the kit if the shield was included. It might be something to add to the kit in the future. I finished up the install with one of Mark's stainless test pipes and connected the new stainless goodies to my exsisting Hooker exhaust.
After work today I took the T for a test drive. I was previously driving the car with an open exhaust that dumped right at the end of the DP. This is the first time the exhaust has been closed in years. I immediately noticed the car's throttle response was much more crisp than before. Spool up is also quicker now through the mufflers than it was with an open DP before. This may be because the 46mm gate opens later than the DeltaGate I had on before, or I had cracks in the stock headers that I can't see or because the car is just happier with the new headers. Either way, I'm very happy with the improvement in performance! The lowest boost setting is around 10-12psi with this gate (at which the car still rips, mind you). I adjusted it to 18psi with my in-car boost controller. The car stays rock-solid at 18psi and doesn't budge. I only have pump gas in the car, so I didn't chance taking the boost any higher. The car feels GREAT at 18psi. There is a definate seat-of-the-pants increase in performance.
I'm so happy with the headers, gate and downpipe from Mark that I also plan on upgrading my exhaust in the near future to Mark's stainless, 3", polished cat back system for a bumper to bumper TR Custom Parts exhaust system.
Thanks, Mark!
The pics that Mark has on his website of the headers, DP and gate are exactly how my parts look. The parts on his site are NOT specially built to look great just for advertising pics. They are an accurate representation of the parts I received. They look great! Very nice welds, no slag in the tubes and the ports/bolt holes lined up exactly with the supplied FelPro 1400 exhaust gaskets. Everything looks as good as parts costing twice as much.
The install only held one surprise, which turns out isn't much of a surprise. After mounting the right side header and dropping the turbo on it's flange, I noticed the turbo didn't want to sit flush. The compressor housing was coming in contact with the heater hose fitting that's cast on the water pump. I originally thought this was a major screw up as I have never encountered this issue before. I contacted Mark on the issue. He in turn contacted his supplier and started a thread here on TB.com to see if anyone else has had this happen. Keep in mind I have a T-72 on my T which has a compressor housing thats around 8" in diameter. According to a couple members here and the person Mark contacted, this can be and issue with other headers as well when turbo sizes get around the 70mm and bigger range. The fix is either take some material off of the water pump fitting or remove the fitting entirely, fill the hole and install a fitting where it's more convienent. I opted to take some material off.
15 minutes with a die grinder and the 72 sat flush on it's flange. All in all, not a big deal. I applied some black RTV to the fitting and a little to the inside of the heater hose, slipped the hose over the fitting and tightened the clamp. Done deal.
The rest of the install went pretty smoothly. Two holes in the downpipe's flange needed to be clearenced with a drill bit in order for the mounting bolts to thread straight into the turbine housing. This took all of about 1 minute to perform. After the holes were clearenced, the downpipe went on without issue.
The trans lines need to be pushed to the side a few inches in order to make room for the (two piece, v-band) crossover. I intend to take it a step further and add clamp-on heat shield (Jeg's part number 893-11600) just to keep as much heat away from the trans lines as possible. The heat shield is $23 and is well worth the piece of mind. I would have paid another 25 bucks more for the kit if the shield was included. It might be something to add to the kit in the future. I finished up the install with one of Mark's stainless test pipes and connected the new stainless goodies to my exsisting Hooker exhaust.
After work today I took the T for a test drive. I was previously driving the car with an open exhaust that dumped right at the end of the DP. This is the first time the exhaust has been closed in years. I immediately noticed the car's throttle response was much more crisp than before. Spool up is also quicker now through the mufflers than it was with an open DP before. This may be because the 46mm gate opens later than the DeltaGate I had on before, or I had cracks in the stock headers that I can't see or because the car is just happier with the new headers. Either way, I'm very happy with the improvement in performance! The lowest boost setting is around 10-12psi with this gate (at which the car still rips, mind you). I adjusted it to 18psi with my in-car boost controller. The car stays rock-solid at 18psi and doesn't budge. I only have pump gas in the car, so I didn't chance taking the boost any higher. The car feels GREAT at 18psi. There is a definate seat-of-the-pants increase in performance.
I'm so happy with the headers, gate and downpipe from Mark that I also plan on upgrading my exhaust in the near future to Mark's stainless, 3", polished cat back system for a bumper to bumper TR Custom Parts exhaust system.
Thanks, Mark!
