Header Installation
 

Well, after having my headers sit in my garage for a year+ I am finally getting around to having them installed. So I called a few exhaust places around me and asked how much they would charge to do something like that, and every on of the mechanics I spoke to said they had never done headers on an Alero, it would be extremely difficult, and that it would cost like 95$ an hour to do something like that. Plus, two of the guys I spoke with acted like they were the best at that kind of stuff, and went on and on about really having to know what you are doing when you install those kind of performance parts. Being that I have read of many people on this site installing the headers themselves, can it really be that hard? and couldn't a $55 an hour mechanic handle something like that? I did talk to a guy at a Ford dealership who I know through a friend who does stuff on the side who said he would take a shot at it since he has done headers and exhausts on diesel trucks, but if the installation is really that difficult I am not sure how good he is, and if he could handle it; what do you guys think? Please help! I need some advice as what to do?

its not difficult........ more time consuming than anything. if you have acess to a lift that makes things way easier.


any mechanic worth a shit wont have a problem installing any type of headers

The guy at the Ford dealership can use the lift there at the service shop. When he was replacing my brake pads and I asked him about it, he said something about putting the engine in a cradle; is that necessary? I just don't want him to f*&k anything up on my engine.

Its not so much the difficulty as it is the patience and fitting and Sweet is right a lift will make it a lot easier.

i did mine in my garage, took me and a friend 5 hrs, the hardest most frustrating part was removing the factory exhaust manifolds.

the shop that put my TOGs on didnt have any problems besides the crossover pipe being about 1" too short. what brand of headers are they?

They are TOG's. So what did you do when you ran into the crossover pipe problem?

they cut the flange off and welded in a pipe long enough to breach the gap then welded the flange back to the pipe. i think i have a pic of that somewhere on here.

Really the hardest part is getting the old stuff out... I'm sure you'll be cursing at all the heat shields.

Do you know if anyone else with TOG's had the same problem, or is it hit and miss?

Based on everyone's input (which I greatly appreciate) I will just have the mechanic who does stuff on the side at the Ford dealership do it since he has access to a lift, has done exhausts on a lot of other vehicles, and he will do it cheap for cash under the table :thumb:!

Now I just have to figure out what to do about the O2 sensor since my car is an 04; but that's another thread.

yep! i finally took tin snips and cut my heat shields in several pieces.

The guy who installed my headers just called about some things, and he mentioned that the header comes really close to the thermostat housing. Is that typical, or is something wrong?

nope, thats normal.

hehe my first time doing headers with my friends, took us over 20 hours on his cavy

I'm a little late to this party, but the same issue that Jackal had, I had as well. I'm guessing TOG's QA dept. took a vacation before they went out of business and stopped caring about the fit and finish.

$95 an hour mechs? $55 an hour mechs??? holy shit. thats just ridiculous. I think our labor is about $36 an hour... lmao. And so what if it requires some fab work? we swap out different spd transmissions, and all kinds of custom performance stuff... lmao. Gosh no wonder people hate mechs so much, you get ripped off....

Wish I lived near your shop. The guy doing it now is only charging me $25/hour cash under the table, which is less than half of the lowest hourly rate I was quoted at $55/hour, but it is being done at his convenience, and I have to put up with his bullshit, so it isn't as good of a deal as it sounds. I am sure some of the shops I spoke to realized I didn't know what I was doing, so they were trying to take advantage of my ignorance.

yeh and they will. lol. Trust me i know... i see it all. Shop owner's are... eh... and will half ass you on anything they can. Its always bad when we hire a new guy and they are used to taking advantage of somebody so we have to break them of it. And its common for them to do side jobs like you just explained... on their own time and not under the shop. its pure profit for them. You'd think hed be more motivated??

I"m going to be getting headers soon too, a lot of mechs around here charge an average of about $62 an hour... Kinda high for me.... Thank God my dad works at an oil company... They work on trucks all the time so most of the guys there are pretty handy and will help. So I could probably get headers installed for free. :D

$85/hr is avg around here.