McKrevice

Regardless of whatever expertise you claim the extent of your participation on this thread has been to demean a product, a company and members. Not really an effective way to gain respect from this community.

Since I have spent so many YEARS telling this forum that these headers are good for the LEXUS V8 your posts = a direct insult to me even if unintentional.

You claim to have expertise with headers. You claim short tube headers aren’t worthwhile. You imply all S&S products were/are over priced garbage. You admit that you have ZERO experience with these headers.

Fact: The S&S headers for the LEXUS V8 make significant power across the RPM range.
Fact: They fit and are of good quality.
Fact: They were fairly priced.
Fact: S&S as a company was an asset to the Lexus performance community.
Fact: NO other factory replacement performance header was/is available for these engines.

 

I agree. Theres alot of money to be made for the person that steps up and makes some new headers. Now that S&S is no longer in business many people want headers for their GS. Including me. If someone can make a header of the quality of S&S or better than i am in and have cash waiting to buy.

 

I only voiced my opinion. My personal experiences with this brand. Whether it be on a Lexus, a Ferrari, a Tundra or a Mustang, I do feel that it does not matter. A brand is represented as a whole. If you have a dishwasher made by GE, and it winds up not living up to expectations, the chances of you buying another GE product might be less than say, a competitor's similar product. And that's the point I was trying to make. I had 2 issues with this brand. It happens.

It was never my objective to insult you. I don't know you or your affiliation with this company.

And yes, short tube headers for the price, ease of installation, etc etc is not as great as longtubes. Agree or disagree? It's pretty irrelevant at this point as it has nothing to do with the GS.

And yes, I do have zero experience with these headers on a Lexus of any kind. But I cannot imagine that there is some huge difference in the designing, materials, welds etc, between a Lexus and a Toyota Header made by the same company. Am I wrong? I truly have no idea. If you tell me that the Lexus headers were made with different materials, by different welders, then I apologize.

 

Now this is positive dialog.

I agree that if a persons only experience with any given company is poor then that is likely to be their opinion on the entire company. Something that is unfortunately missed by more than a few companies.

I kind of assumed you did not intentionally insult me.

The only affiliation I had was with the Lexus headers. I never visited or met anyone from S&S in person. My opinion was of a small but honest and struggling specialty header shop.

On a 4 valve street engine with minimal to no effective overlap 6300rpm redline and a full exhaust system... longtube vs. short design is less important than aero. Actual tuning is not the goal. You may wish to read the header condensed thread sticky'd on this section for more details and or search by my name and headers. When you consider that these bolt on and work quite well with the stock catalysts and Y pipe and consider the savings and ease of re-using stock parts vs custom exhaust parts, emissions conserns etc. these actually offer a very good bang for the buck. As you mentioned before installation is not easy and in fact Lexus calls for engine removal for manifold R&R.

Actually I had a fair amount of influence in the design as compromised as it turned out (with any street header being a compromise)

There were 2 header sets that I recall having manufacturing problems with the rest being average to above craftmanship. The head flange did have a rough finish that looked as much like intentional gasket retention as anything else.

The headers initially used 16 gauge tubing which as you know is thicker than the average aftermarket header. Flanges being decently thick 3/8”. Welds were decent but not outstanding. Design used merge style collectors on the 1st two of the three collectors per side ( I wanted all three). Swaging at the header inlet eliminated possible misalignment at the head (my request) and created the arguable anti-reversion lip. I would have preferred stainless but cost would have gone up and S&S was not expert with stainless fabrication. The Jet Hot coated mild steel in 14 gauge should have an excellent service life. So yes, I don’t think these were like anything else S&S offered or actually anyone else. Since Loren designed these with only a set of stock manifolds and did so staying inside the stock heat shields (he had no car to R&D on) he could not find a way to merge 3&7 around the steering so asked my opinion of mirroring the driver side. Compared to the stock manifold this was a much better option so I concurred. It actually may work well with the merge using blowdown to pull on the adjacent cylinder.

Do YOU have the capability of re-producing an existing header? Interest? A copy of this existing design is proven and works very well for naturally aspirated and even better for supercharged engines.

 

Holy crap! Those look very similar to a Fox Body Mustang Header...from 86-93. The one obvious difference is where the header bolts to the cylinder head. That would have to be custom made, but big deal, that's not too hard to make the flange and weld it to the header....but I wonder if those would work with some modifications?

What does the exhaust port look like on the GS? Is it round or oval?

From the looks of it, this header does not look that hard to reproduce.

Hard to tell if that would work or be a good step in the right direction of having something made that will work AND bolt up to the rest of the GS Exhaust system....and have most of the R&D done already by the numerous companies that make headers for Mustangs.

Hmmmmm

 

You said gears, not LSD, those are two different things. I have a TRD LSD diff with stock gears. So yeah, TRD or a new oem torsen diff are not cheap, but you said gears. so how about sticking to the subject.

And to your comment about me having headers does not mean anything. I have more expirence with the actual product than you, so what you talking about? You have ZERO product knowledge on GS4xx headers.

 

sucks to see no more S&S headers in production

 

Since you're new here I can understand your comment, but if you spend enough time here, you will soon see that headers are more of a long term wish list item to most members. There are many that want them, but only a few that actually open up their wallets.

 

I meant differential. And I even mentioned it in my previous posts. But continue to bust my ***** about if you wish. I know what I meant, and I think most others would agree if they went back and re-read my posts regardless if they like me on here or not....that I was talking about a differential.

But in all fairness, I have swapped gears in my race cars, whether it be 3.55's, 3.73's or 4.10's and have also swapped in Eatons or Torsen T2's, which in your terms is an LSD? So I am well aware the difference between gears and diffs. I can swap gears in my race car without having to do much to the diff besides checking the bearings, getting new clutch packs ( if necessary), or taking it out and rinsing it out with parts cleaner to make sure everything is in good working order, and since I have not looked into doing this type of thing in the GS, it is unclear to me what goes into doing it. I am under the assumption that it is not as easy as swapping out gears on the GS as it is in my race car. But I have not looked into it fully, so whatever I have to say at this point is moot. If I could swap out gears without having to buy a diff and not have it throw off my speedo, makes no sense to me to swap the diff out, unless of course it's one wheel peel and even in that case, big deal, it's a Lexus, not a race car doing burnouts with VHT. BUT I do have ZERO experience with this so as above, moot point.

I am really starting to think that you are not fully reading my posts or do not understand them fully, or are just trying to flame me for saying something negative about a product you have on your car.

Congrats on having GS headers. And congrats on thinking you have more experience with S&S headers. Even if you do? Who cares really. Does that mean you are the expert with the only opinion that counts and that my experiences with them is null and void? Of course it doesn't. I am glad you are happy with yours.

 

Since McKrevice and jbrady insist upon self-defending each others' personal attacks, this thread has become useless. Is there a mod nearby that can close this puppy down?

 

McKrevice, please exit this thread.

Everybody else, back on topic please

 

so jbrady as i asked before all this drama started.........do you have any interest/desire in making us a header since you were included in the R&d design and are familiar with the headers or do you know someone who has a overstock on them and actually has a G2 S&S header in stock to buy?

 

someone should buy this guys jig and build some better headers for us.

ive used s&s headers on 2 applications, didnt have good luck with either set, and they eventually were replaced. just my .02 my personal experience is something that cant be argued against neither i, nor the owner of the car, were pleased.

since they are closed down, thats neither here nor there.....but someone needs to get this guys jig for these things and get us some headers!

 

yea im with ya on that, im hoping that maybe jbrady can help us. I mean he kinda knows this guy loren,& we have the name of the co owner, can someone,somehow get in contact with these people, see what we can get done. eather buy the jig, or maybe loren can continue to make these on the side for us, or something, this is one of the last HP mods i can do on my 98SC4 and im super dissapointed, i too was getting ready to order some, if i cant get these then i, might have to start thinkin about doing a 2J swap & thats alot bigger project to get into. Damn ive been pissed about this all day, i even tried to call them.

 

dude you need to drive down there,& see what up, I would. they may not be in business but they might be there cleaning out or trying to finish customer's products. you might be able to find out if there going to try & continue,some place else or what. help if your close.