RWD headers in an iX (Photos)

[The Dark Side of Will]

Car was like this when I bought it:













Anyone know what kind of headers these are?

You can see that the secondaries had to be extended to clear the transfer case.

The catalyst is just a crappy universal unit and has a Y-pipe on the back end to connect to a stock cat-back.

The wires draped over the pipes were formerly for the O2 sensor... I've since fixed that, run new wiring and installed a connector for a GM sensor. In the first pic just above the strut tower, you can see the installer's hack job on the O2 sensor wiring.

[jute91]

[nando]

most RWD headers should fit fine. if anything, there's more space - the CV shafts take up less room that the subframe/engine mounts that are in the way on RWD cars. the only thing to watch for is heat, I always melted the CV boot closest to the exhaust. that got a lot better with ceramic coating.

[The Dark Side of Will]

most RWD headers should fit fine.

Mine didn't... you can see by the patched pipes that the secondaries/collectors had to be extended by 6+ inches to clear the T-case.

[nando]

Thats not really part of the header though, its more of the mid pipe.

It looks like the entire exhaust is welded, must suck to work on. :(

[jute91]

I've heard rumours that engine sits higher in ix, because they needed to clear the movement for the half shafts.. I bought mine from speed-daddy.com and noticed that it was too close the firewall so I had to add little angle after the collectors.. pardon me for the fucked up weld.. I really didn't care at that point :D

[nando]

Those are Ebay headers, they don't really fit any E30, lol.

[jute91]

wonder why they were so cheap thought

[The Dark Side of Will]

Thats not really part of the header though, its more of the mid pipe.

It looks like the entire exhaust is welded, must suck to work on. :(

Whatever you want to call it, one designed for a RWD car will probably have problems if installed on an iX.

The secondaries are still important to header function... who knows what happened to the power curve with that mod. It seems to come up on the curve at 4K moreso than other M20's I've driven.

Everything's welded back to the Y-pipe on the cat outlet; then it's flanged to a stock cat-back.

[nando]

yeah, the entire section from the collectors to the catback is ix-specific. it's not surprising that the RWD version doesn't fit. the headers themselves usually will, that's all I was saying.