I finally installed my 1-7/8 American Racing headers, and Steeda Sport springs. While I was at it I took off the front bumper and did the "Patriot" Boss bpr mod. I really like the way the car looks now. Personally it has a better stance now, though I wish it had a little more rake to it. As for the headers, The car is amazingly QUIETER now!! I first noticed that when I installed a set of ARH on a 5.0 last month, my customer noted it too. You practically can't hear it at idle and not much louder on acceleration. I guess it just smooths out the exhaust airflow quite a bit. Obviously I am comparing with the sides capped. I am planning to visit my muffler shop to install the starter pipes Nick from ARH made for me so I can run the side pipes and finally get back that sound.

 

Looks great with the front painted! I just may have to do the same thing to mine. I may also do the side skirts and the outside of the rear diffuser also. I wonder if anyone could do PS of the rear diffuser painted a couple of different ways?

BTW I love the stance with the Steedas...I am doing the Steeda comps in a couple of weeks on mine

 

Sweet! Did you take any pics of the headers first? Car looks great BTW. Also, I'm inviting you to post a pic of the Hemi Cuda !

 

Thanks for the comments, I was in too much of a hurry to hear and drive it to take a pic of the headers. I will put it up on the lift to get one. The 'Cuda is undergoing a restoration right now. I will get a pic later.

 

Get that thing to the dyno and/or track!

How noticeable is the power increase?
Catted or O/R H or X?
ARH made flanges for the side pipes?

 

Running the ARH 1-7/8 long tubes with the high flow cats and Magnaflow cat back on mine and it sounds bad ***. Seat of the pants you can tell it picked up some power. Mostly I would say above 4000rpms. At the auto-x two weeks ago I noticed it pulled better up top.

Video quality sucks but you can get an idea of sound.
http://youtu.be/0R8UGR2CzME

 

Is that the original lower part of the the bumper that was black now painted C/O? It looks great.

 

WOW! the stance and paint look awesome. Did you notice any negative changes in ride quality or handling with the springs. I have a pair of comps steeda here ready to put in. Im a little worried though. I also have a set of new RTR rims considering putting these on with the springs....... I dont know will see.... what do you guys think??

 

The patriot car had the rockers and rear valance top painted too.

 

I can't say any negative feedback so far about the springs, maybe just a little bit stiffer in the rear, when cornering hard. I pushed it harder than normal in one of my favorite turns and it slid a squeeled a bit, again I was going about 8 mph faster than normal. Other than that ride feels the same and no scraping going in and out of my driveway which has a pretty steep curb.

As fo the headers/power. I immediately noticed a flat spot off idle and quick stabs at the throttle. Feels as if it leans out on fuel mixture. Not worried about that at all, I know a proper tune will clear that up and that's when I will really take advantage of the extra scavenging going on with them headers. My only reservation with the tune is I want to see how the TrackKey and aftermarket tunes are going to work. Questions, questions...

I decided to only do the bumper paint mod and not the whole patriot boss painting of the other moldings/valances. I still wanted to retain some of the black accents,.

 

Did you remove the bumper or the body shop? If you, how involved was it?

 

Spoke with Jon Lund in detail yesterday on the track key and it comes down to you can tune the car and he thinks the track key if added will not over ride the tune when in use but it won't take into account changes in the custom tune either. So if say you are running a JLT intake that requires a tune the track key when activated would not be compatible with the intake. Now he did say if he could get the information from the track key then he could change it so it would work with intakes and other mods.

I am getting a tune from him and gonna wait and see if he or other tuners can modify it down the road.

 

Well I have a body shop, as far as involvement it was just a simple matter of removing the bumper, disassembling the various parts, cleaning and painting process. I had it back on in about 4 hours.


NCETRY: Thanks for that insight

 

That would be effing awesome. I wonder if he can though since ford killed the cammed tunes seems track key will be locked. I've considered taking offthe steeda cai so I can use track key. I've got 1 7/8 dynatech headers on my car and the collector scrapes on speed bumps at stock height so be careful. They added 20 whp for me with a less than ideal tune. Getting a new tune and we will see how it does then.

 

Thanks for the info. Your Boss looks awesome.

 

I was told you will be able to get cammed tunes again. Lund stopped for a bit because Ford asked but in my own opinion that was like Ford saying you can't adjust the timing or change cams ever on your car.

The collectors on the ARH 1-7/8 headers I have plenty of clearance. Car would scrape before headers would.