First of all I apologize for not being on here in ages. But at my age, life has taken over. I have been busy riding my mountain bike and running my daughters to every frickn type of sports practice/game you can think of.

None the less, I decided to play around with a few things again. I bought via ebay a cheap header and b-pipe as well as an intake (already have a dry filter for it so I just needed the piping). In any case (no flame throwers needed!) I am trying to find out what I need to do to prevent the dredded check engine light issues. I have done some searching and know that I will need some sort of O2 simulator on the b-pipe rather than the header itself. I am trying to find out if anyone can pin point an specific part that I can buy to do this. Most of the stuff I have read is old and I don't know if those items are even available any longer. I have also read about guys buying spark plug anti foulers and drilling them out. From what I can make out of that post, it would appear that it is drilled out and then screwed into the sensor bung on the b-pipe and then the O2 sensor screwed into that. In effect drawing the O2 sensor away from the exhaust air stream, thus allowing it to get lower temps and less air hitting it. That being said, is the below listed part basically the same thing? This is basically what I used on my 07 WRX when I added the full exhaust to it.

http://www.amazon.com/Oxygen-Sensor-...0153392&sr=8-7

I am also hoping that the header and the b-pipe will mate up. It would appear that they are compatible from the pictures but one never really knows with this cheap crap until it arrives. But judging by the factory mount location on the flange of the header it would appear that the b-pipe should mount right to it as both can supposedly be used with OEM parts on the car (separately). At least it looks like they could be from what I can make out.

The whole goal here was to start opening up the exhaust a little bit and to see if I could do it cheaply. Hey, I got 3 daughters and a bad mtb habbit to support so money is tight. I understand that you get what you pay for and I am willing to deal with that. Worst case is that I can post up what doesn't work for some new folks out there that are thinking about doing the same thing. Eventually, I will proably add a mid pipe into the equation and lastly figure out what I am going to do about an axle back. My goal is to keep things fairly quiet overall so the stock axle back may remain (might have a different tip welded on to it).

So, if any of you guys have added a header recently, let me know what you used to eliminate the triggering of the cell.

 

Well, since this is sort of a classified mission (the wife doesn't know I bought some new parts), my buddy that will be helping me install this crap (going to do it all at his house even though I have tools) says he has a couple spark plug/O2 extenders in his tool box!!! I figure we will give that a shot first and just go from there. He also has an OBDII scanner so we should be able to monitor everything as soon as it is installed.

 

i run a weapon r cel eliminator its a 90 degree elbow that threads into the bung. works fine on my xb2 with the weapon r header + weapon r s-pipe.

http://www.celeliminator.com/

 

You have 3 daughters! Holy crap man, yeah you're brave. I would have stopped after the first one. But yeah this guy above me knows what's up. That seems to be the best one. Not sure if it works with other headers other than Weapon-R but I guess you could try.

 

Well, the first one turned out to be twins. 6 years later, I thought we were just at the practice range. Turns out it was a live fire exercise and BOOM here came number 3! (sorry military speak) Oh, it gets better! The younger twin started her period for the first time yesterday. All hell is about to break loose up in my house here real soon.

I know my buddies are more than likely straight bung extenders so I will look into the Weapon R version in a 90 degree. Anyone got a link before I start searching? Never mind, saw the link above!

 

OMG! $47 %^&*)P)_()*&!!!! That is just ridiculous. Perhaps I will try the straight version first and then go on to this if need be.

 

What about this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-St..._Parts&vxp=mtr

Do you know the size of the O2 sensor? When I click on your link it simply says for Scion or Civic but really doesn't list a size. The one I just posted up appears to be an 18mm.

 

I used to have a Megan 4-1 header and I used this.....

....



I believe you get these from auto parts store and screw in two or three until your CEL is gone. Previous owner used three, but I kept getting CEL after 20 miles or so, so I went with two to extend the O2 out and CEL free for 2000+ miles, then I took off the header. RASP! lol

 

Yep, that is exactly what I was thinking it was going to need. Apparently my buddy has a couple of them. Not sure how much space we will have to stack them on the b-pipe under the car. I simply haven't looked at the placement recently to have a good enough idea. I figure i will try what he has first and if that doesn't work, get a 90 degree and do an add on there if need be.

I doubt that I will have much rasp considering I am only adding the header and b-pipe at the moment. I would think that the stock mid pipe and axle back will still keep things close to stock as far as sound goes. I know that when I ran what Turbo XS calls a stealth back on my Subaru's the car sounded stock and that was with a header, up pipe, down pipe, mid pipe and high flow cat (even w/ a test pipe at one point) to the stock axle back. It still sounded stock. Once I put their RFL axle back on, it sounded like a beast!

But the goal here is to keep things fairly quiet if you will. I am going to do this in stages. I will do the header/b-pipe first and see what I get. I suspect it will still sound stock. I will then do the mid pipe which of course will have a higher flowing resonator in it and see how that sounds. Not sure if I will do an axle back again as it simply droned too much for me. (I had a Greddy ti on there for about 2 weeks) I don't mind a little increased exhaust sound but the Greddy was a little too much for me. I mean it sounded nice but the droning on the highway was too much, not to mention my wife complaining about it. I also struggled with the fact that the car sounded nice and fast...the only problem is that I wasn't going fast!

 

not to put u down on hopes of no rasp, but ANY header to this 2AZFE engine will produce rasp. I ran a megan 4-1 header with stock s-pipe and custom megan midpipe with HKS Hi power axle... custom being over 40" of resonators...

I had 800-1000 RPMs of rasp between 3K-4K... I went back to OEM exhaust manifold and I am super happy.

Your subaru engine is no where close to the 2azfe lol.

 

I await your thread of "oh no i have rasp help!" if you do go through with the header install even without modifying other parts of your exhaust setup... lol

 

I have seen the threads before. Most of the folks that installed a header already had a minimum of an axle back if not a cat back. Don't get me wrong, I am not thinking I will not have any rasp coming from this swap. I suspect there will be some there. But I also think that any aftermarket cat back set up only helps to amplify it further. Honestly, I think I will take some rasp here and there over the droning of the axle back that I was dealing with. I mean, the drone ran from about 55 to 70 mph. On the highway it was just horrible and I have to drive on the highway every frickn day. If the rasp only comes on during harder accelleration or say between 3-4k, I think that is something I can deal with. But we will see. I will definitely post up an opinion once completed but you won't here me crying for help as I pretty much knew what I was getting into with this one.

 

Did you hear the rasp when cruising on the highway or say around 60-65 mph?

I realize my ej25 was a bit of a different beast and I do agree with you on that one!!

 

There's no rasp on cruising but there is rasp under acceleration, unless u really grandma it the pedal.....

I had rasp 2300-up to near redline BEFORE adding 24" of resonator to the 19" that came with the megan midpipe...again..u really had to grandma it to hit little or no rasp...that's how bad the sound gets without dropping in 36"+ of resonators...

Header will actually make your car louder and not actually drone it out, if you wanted to drone out your axleback, I would've gone with more resonators.....and throw on a silencer.

Not sure if your axle came with a silencer, but my HKS has one and I tell you it's super quiet on the highway with the silencer on. My Weapon R intake and HKS with silencer is actually almost leveled in regards to producing noise, i hear both relatively well.

 

I used 3 anti foulers from autozone drilled one out 1/2 in and connect 2 more no cel now got one when I only used 2

 

My Greddy was purchased second hand so it did not have the silencer. At the same time I felt that adding a silencer would simply delete any gains possibly gained (what 1-2 hp ). It was easier to just resell it and move on.

When I say it droned, I mean the sound just reverberated horribly inside the car. Anywhere from about 2800 rpm up to about 3400 rpm, which is basically where your rpms sit at cruising speeds.

As I mentioned earlier, I am sure there will be some rasp coming out of this thing. It is just the nature of the beast I guess you could say. But I am hoping that things will be some what minimized by the use of the stock mip pipe and axle back. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that my experience will be different from anyone esles on here at all. I am simply saying that I would expect it to be less loud running the back half of the exhaust over an aftermarket system. Not gone all together or no rasp.

 

i just wish there was a system for sale that made my xb2 sound like a wrx lol love that sound!!

 

Its called an ej25 I believe! They come stock in the WRX/STI/FXT and several others. One only needs to start with the correct platform.

Don't worry, I'm not knocking the XB or Scion's in general. I truely miss my Suby's, more so my FXT than my WRX (it was much faster/louder...) But life has a way of making us make decisions at times that seem to make sense only to leave us saying, "WTF was I thinking???"

Just a couple quick pics of my FXT and WRX. I posted the one with it sitting next to another FXT so you can see the difference of what a set of coilovers can do in comparison to a set of STI springs on the same car. Mine is much lower. That pic was taken at a Suby meet 2 days before it got traded in for the WRX. I have to go now, starting to cry.

 

Naah I'm sure you coulda just found a silencer to fit in. Just makes u get the right ID / OD piping.

Also adding that silencer wouldn't make you lose HP like you say... highly doubt it would make you lose if any, maybe it would be more psychological because you're not hearing any loudness lol.

 

You don't lose hp with it just some of that fart can noise lol ive had my car dynoed with and with out the silencer no difference