pacesetter longtubes........ugh

well ive been having a whole lot of fun forthe past couple hours. tryin to get my pacesetter longtube header put in on the drivers side. i jacked the thing up as high as i could but i still cant get that p.o.s up there. ive tried every which angle. i dont have the new heads on yet bc i figured it would be easier to put the headers in place first and then put the heads on. i tried puttin the header in from the top from the bottom any which way i could and all the farther i have gotten is just pissed off for the rest of the night. anyone have any tips or something to help? thanks

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Originally Posted by jmatt07

well ive been having a whole lot of fun forthe past couple hours. tryin to get my pacesetter longtube header put in on the drivers side. i jacked the thing up as high as i could but i still cant get that p.o.s up there. ive tried every which angle. i dont have the new heads on yet bc i figured it would be easier to put the headers in place first and then put the heads on. i tried puttin the header in from the top from the bottom any which way i could and all the farther i have gotten is just pissed off for the rest of the night. anyone have any tips or something to help? thanks

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Wow man, you are having a shit ton of problems aren't you? You might have to "massage" the firewall with a hammer to get them to to fit...

Lol and the pass side went in so easy... Every time i do lt's i have to jack up a front end about 2 or 3 feet and then you should have enough clearence to slide it up in there. Its all about the angle of approach.
J

ya thats what i did. i have it jacked up pretty high. i have room underneath but its just like the header is too damn big for the hole. im about to bust out the hammer and grinder and go to town on this thing.

^^^ i gotta give you major credit for doing this on your own. With all the problems installing these headers and the amount of time it takes i think im gonna pay someone to do it that has experience doing these several times.

have you tried removing the steering linkage?

no i havent tried that yet. There is a little sqare block of metal stickin out of the block on the drivers side. anyone know what the purpose of that is? bc its the only thing its gettin caught on and i bet if i could grind some of it off it would fit up there fine.

when i put my pacesetter LT on i was having the same problem..so i decided to take off the steering linkage, and the drivers side slide right in. It took me 3 days to install myself, but that was only like a couple of hours a day.

I plan on doing it myself.

ill tell you right now that a the lift i have was a life saver.....i couldnt imagine what a PITA it owuld be if you were to use jacks and jack stand....ugh thank goodness i had one....

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Originally Posted by jmatt07

no i havent tried that yet. There is a little sqare block of metal stickin out of the block on the drivers side. anyone know what the purpose of that is? bc its the only thing its gettin caught on and i bet if i could grind some of it off it would fit up there fine.

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Yeah, just grind that little block. I had to grind a little bit on that tab when I installed my pacesetters, it wont hurt anything, and you dont have to grind a whole lot on it after that it should slide in.

I did my install using jack stands as well. the driver side is a bit of a pain. I just used a hammer to dent the firewall a bit. then I just gave it a good shove and it slipped in. I got a lil lucky I think.

Dont let a horror story steer ya in the wrong direction, it took a buddy and me around 4 hours to instail the lt's and full catback..
J

It wasnt really a horror story for me, just luckily i have any tool you can think of and thats what makes all the difference in the world is haveing the right tools....dont get me wrong it was still a job just because of the fact that it is so tight in there. I just worked on it a couple of hours a day and got it dont in 3 days...prolly a totatl of 6 or 7 hours

Jack the motor up 1 inch.

Man I would love to install the headers I'm getting just to get some experience under my belt, but I'm so daunted by the thought of it. Will probably pay someone to do it right the first time...good luck to you though.

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Originally Posted by onetroubledguy

Man I would love to install the headers I'm getting just to get some experience under my belt, but I'm so daunted by the thought of it. Will probably pay someone to do it right the first time...good luck to you though.

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Dont pay anyone, post up in the Texas section and see if a fellow member can give you a hand. Or check around with local F body car clubs..
J

i put pacesetter lt on my 02 t/a.we took the transmission mount nut out,and using a jack lifted the rear(tailshaft)of the trans up as far as it would go and the drivers side header slid right in.hope this helps,we were going to grind the little block off but we didn't have to by doing this.

The drivers side was the hardest for me too. we actually had to remove the drivers side engine mount bracket and raise the engine to put the header in place.
So we removed the mount, raised the engine, slid the header in place, dropped the engine, put the mount back together, then finally bolted the header in place. it was a lot of juggling... but its all done now and it looks great! hope that helps.

^^^^ we thought about the motor mount removal route,but it was a hell of a lot easier to just raise the rear of the transmission.and i bet that was a real pita.