First off, let me start by saying that I thought this would have gone a lot quicker than it did. I had the advantage of using a lift, so no dealing with jacking the car up, so that definitely made the process easier. I pretty much followed the install guide that was put out for the DC headers, and everything translated pretty well.
The first problem I came accross was in removing the heat shield. It turned out the bolt that required the torx socket was stripped. As such, I wasn't able to remove it, and basically had to bend the heat shield with a screwdriver so it could clear the bolt. No harm in doing this, since I wasn't needing to re use the heat shield. Did manage to cut my hands up pretty well, but nothing serious. After doing this I sprayed WD40 on the O2 sensor and the nuts connecting the header to the block. I then went to unbolt the other end of the exhaust manifold. This turned out to be far harder than I expected. I probably spent an hour doing this part alone. Disconnecting the manifold from the s-pipe was no problem, but removing it from its mounting brackets was a real pain in the ___. None of my sockets could get in far enough, and the wrenches I had couldn't provide enough leverage. After a while, I hooked up a couple wrenches together to get a better lever arm, and while this worked, it still took a lot of force to remove the nuts. The rest of the removal went smoothly.
Putting the new header revealed a couple problems as well. I managed to overtorque the nuts (accidently set the wrench to 25 ft lbs instead of 20), and the threads on them snapped. Not having any spares on hand, I managed to salvage the situation by flipping them around backwards (only half of the thread had broken away) and lightly tightened them with hand tools. The next day I got some replacements, though I used a seperate washer/nut arrangement instead of the all in one set up that it previously had. Not being at the shop, I didn't use a torque wrench to put these on, and just guessed from the previous days experience as to how tight 20 ft lbs was.
No problems other than the expected CEL.

 

You forgot the cardinal rule -

1. Use gloves when installing and use an alchohol based cleaner to clean the header before starting up the car.... No Purple oil burns then....

You want it to look like this....

 

Kick a guy when he's down, huh?

 

Any idea on how to get rid of them after the fact?

 

If I remember right, you can't get rid of it. Once it is burned in, you would probably have to resurface the entire thing in order to get it looking like new.

I love the Megan header. Good choice.

 

Oh well, the supercharger will obscure the worst of it.

 

powder coat it flat black it will cover all the stains (thats my plan)

 

Ohhh.... nice idea...... I wonder how'd that work.... you think you can get a gloss black that will stand up to that much heat?

 

i was thinking of polydyning my header black before i got it installed. for those that dont know, its sorta like a coating that will reduce heat in that section. its better for performance but not that much. decided not to do it because it would have costed a good $150

 

it really doesnt look too bad. it could be alot worse.

 

how does she sound..?

 

The difference in sound is barely noticable. I imagine once I switch to a different muffler, the rasp will become more apparent, but I won't be doing that for a while. I've got a ZPI S-pipe on the way, and plan on going with the creative compacts full exhaust system. Does anyone have an opinion on which of the mufflers they offer (Borla, Magnaflow, or Flowmaster) will have the most subdued sound. I'm trying to keep my car sounding as close to stock as possible, because nothing annoys me more than a civic fart can. One the same note, does anyone have any experience with Kosei Rims? I notice their K1 TS 18x7.5" only weigh 16 lbs and look practically indistinguishable from the 17" rims that came with the tC.

 

did you put on both bracket back ? u should ask and check out dp's thread , i think he has full cc exhaust

 

No, I didn't put them back yet, I'll do that when I get in to do my S-pipe next week.