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H3 H3 i5 header worth it?

Can007

Can007

Well-Known Member
Messages
374
Location
Palmdale, CA
Wanted to reach out to the Wise men for guidance/advice. Question- what is everyone position with headers on H3 i5. I have seen a couple of them on eBay. Has anybody installed them? Is it worth the purchase?
 
amrg

amrg

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2,317
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Qatar
Not worth it. You lose the primary cat, end up with a really loud sounding truck and the performance increase is only felt at the higher rpms (4500+) you rarely drive in that range to actually use it. Down low rpms zero improvement.

Humvee had the headers before and ended up removing them due to the amount of noise they made eap since you lose one of the Cats. Replaced it with a V8
 
rascole

rascole

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,852
Location
Bellflower, CA
You're in the same boat as several of us. Great state of CA makes it nearly impossible to install headers. The "legal" ones are very expensive provided it passes smog, they don't guarantee any smog testing. Factory cast manifold is sufficient for the whopping 220hp.
 
Ron46

Ron46

Capt.
Messages
807
Location
NJ
I have headers with a magnaflow cat back and the truck is very loud. It has an annoying drone at about 2200-3000 rpms. There definitely is a power increase which is nice, but the drone to me is a pain. The drone might not be as bad if you have a different cat back or the stock setup.
 
rascole

rascole

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,852
Location
Bellflower, CA
A $280 header isn't going to have any catalyst in it and if it does it will be junk. O2 sensors will catch it 5 minutes after it's been running.
 
H3Wolf

H3Wolf

Well-Known Member
Messages
192
Location
United States
chaos254 said:
How are they ever going to know, put the stock exhaust shield back on and your good to go.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
It's more then that. They actually are supposed to look at everything top to bottom inspecting all the carb stuff. And if it deletes the one cat then the emission will be completely different from what it's supposed to be at on their systems. California is the strictest on this. Now, if you are dead set on having one you can keep the old one and swap it everytime you go in to get the inspection. And you would need another o2 sensor with a diode connected to it, and it will tick your computer keeping it from throwing a check engine light up.
 
Last edited:
Ron46

Ron46

Capt.
Messages
807
Location
NJ
You don't need another o2 sensor with a diode, you just need an o2 spacer, like the one below.

https://www.amazon.com/Universal-Se...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TR1BD1G7NZ89G45V5BMJ

H3Wolf said:
It's more then that. They actually are supposed to look at everything top to bottom inspecting all the carb stuff. And if it deletes the one cat then the emission will be completely different from what it's supposed to be at on their systems. California is the strictest on this. Now, if you are dead set on having one you can keep the old one and swap it everytime you go in to get the inspection. And you would need another o2 sensor with a diode connected to it, and it will tick your computer keeping it from throwing a check engine light up.
Click to expand...
 
humvee

humvee

Well-Known Member
Messages
507
Location
Doha, Qatar
Amrg said it, I sold the headers after a year due to loud noise, drone and overall lack of gains in lower rpm.

In all fairness, I did feel a big difference on the dunes, i5 was doing wonders with the header and Borla exhaust.
Back on the road, not so much, just lots and lots of noise.
 
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