LET THE GAMES BEGIN

okay so i got the truck into paint this weekend. its been absolutley hell for the past few weeks let me tell you...but its painted and looks awesome.













here is a picture of the tri-Y header from doug thorley. i got it on friday.

Looks really good. Nice header.

damn lookin good.

man i like that paint..looks like a purple metallic or something

thanks guys, i had the header ceramic coated so it wont discolor or nothing.

phatboi, the paint is the stock toyota metalic charcole grey. the code is 153. it looks a little darker than stock but thats what the color was based off of. only bad thing is that the engine bay looks to be a couple shades darker than the rest of the truck...im gonna buff it all out and see if i can blend it better if not im gonna repaint the truck to match the engine bay. lol.

A word of caution regarding your new Thorley pipe, they are a nice piece, BUT, I have ran into it about 4 times now on that style header, don't know if its just a bad production batch, a design flaw, a Friday pipe, or what the hey, but check the gasket fitment real close on the flange plate where it bolts to the head, the pear shape of the pipe and EGR port were so done that it left a void that leaked like a bugger after install, I ended up having to weld in the area, them machine it down to make the header flange fit the gasket and seal. The trucks looking good, just trying to save you having to lean over the new paint pulling the pipe on and off. OH yeah, use a stock style gasket too, the POS they send with the pipe is worthless and doesn't last long.

really? uhh oh. lol. the motor is still at the engine shop getting built so i dont have the motor to put the header up to and check it out. i was going to test fit it without the gaskets on the motor while its on the stand. when you said use the stock gaskets, your talking about the gasket that goes on the head? i noticed the ones they sent come in two peices...i know the stock one had a heat sheild looking thing in between cylinders 2 and 3 so im sure thats the reason for coming in two peices. their gaskets look a little thicker like they would make a good seal but like i said i havent had the motor to try anything out on it. from looking at that egr thing on pear shaped pipe, it 'looks' fine, i mean there isnt any obvious gouges or anything but i havent taken any of the gaskets out of the packege they came in yet....im gonna check into this stuff tonight. so basically the header is fine, its just how the gaskets fit on the header that could cause problems? thanks for the info!

Its kinda hard to explain, wish I had one to picture, would make it easier, but here goes. If you flip the header so your looking at the flange side where it bolts to the head where the gasket would be you will see where they welded the pipe and the small EGR pipe into the flange plate, sorta a pear shaped weld ring thats machined smooth to act as the sealing surface against the head/gasket area, that smoothed weld ring is the culprit, it doesn't exactly fit the face surface of the cylinder head and in certain spots on the headers I had experience with it left small little areas where the smoothed seal surface of the header didn't contact the cylinder head completely so the exhaust would leak in those spots.
It was a little hard to detect at first because the gasket would seal for a few minutes then burn through and start leaking. I ended up finding the spots where the leaks would occur and welded the areas just filling it in to create a larger surface area, then smoothed it out as best with a small grinder, then took it to a local machine shop where they flat sanded it with there big belt sander surfacer, no more problems after that.
The gasket I mentioned to use is the stock head to header gasket with the heat shield, may have to do some slight trimming on the tin shield in spots to get it to fit correctly, but thats only minor snipping, the stock gasket has the metal seal rings which seal and last a lot better than the thick ones that come with the header, those seem to burn out rather quickly and turn brittle and crumble. Sorry I couldn't do a better explanation.

ohh....okay i get what your saying. dang i hope this one fits good because i dont want to weld on the header..lol. i just had is ceramic coated so it looks nice. if all else i could take it to a machine shop and let them deal with it...but it is good to know so im not surprised if it happens. have you contacted doug thorley about it? im going to use everything they gave me first but if it doesnt work out (hopefully it does) then ill do like you said. its still going to be another month or so before its up and running i still gotta make a cross member for the tranny and get my exhaust fixed to accomodate the header and move it up enough so my cat doesnt drag anymore. thanks alot man, your explanation makes sense. if i have exhaust leaks how did you detect where they were coming from out of the header? im sure there would be some type of residue but how did you pin point the spot you needed to weld and get flat?

seth, did you have this problem with your header? i know you bought a doug thorley i dont think its the tri-y one but eitherway did you have this problem with yours?