Fleabay headers, really?

So a thread over on Bimmerforums suggests that $100 fleabay stainless headers for e36 cars aren't actually that horrible. Anyone have first hand experience?

Not with the e36 headers. Guy at work with a SR20DET bought one for that motor, had it ceramic coated, etc. Garbage. Cracked where the runners come together. It's sitting in my scrap box right now. You couldn't get in there to reweld it if you wanted to where it cracked. At least with anything I have for welding (stick, MIG). Probably darn hard with a TIG too. Not that getting to the crack was the problem. It should not have cracked in the first place. So, I'd say "it depends" and go on what people who have bought the same header say.

I bought a $100 cast turbo manifold for the 1NZFE I bought from oldopelguy for the Europa. It looks fine.

I cant speak to the specific part you are asking about- for reference: 6 months bought a 3" downpipe for my Volvo 850 turbo that was $150 shipped from the infamous OBX outfit. They are essentially importers, the downpipe had manufacturer plate tacked onto it that that said, "whan lee chee chin manufacturing". The flange was precisely cut, flat, and lined right up. The welds were top notch. We will see what the quality of the stainless is over time, but it looks like I saved I saved 2-300 bucks. Bisimoto relased a rather cool looking and complicated header good for 15 hp for d series Honda's a couple months ago and it has been knocked off and is up for sale on Ebay. If the Chinese can make 14 million Iphones a quarter, quite few people over there can certainly can weld up a few headers. Not sure how I feel about all that, but, there it is.

The Audi 20v turbo headers, I'm told, are fine as long as you figure it's a header kit. Flanges aren't flat, usually the welds have poor penetration, and so on.

The cast RS2-clone manifolds aren't all that hot either, I'm told.

i bought ls1 camaro stainless ebay headers. the flanges are nice and thick, very flat, the pipes are all bent nice and the welds look excellent. they fit perfectly as well and were something stupid like $139 shipped.

All this info makes me question if there's even any sense looking in the 'States...

Shaun wrote: ... the downpipe had manufacturer plate tacked onto it that that said, "whan lee chee chin manufacturing".

That reminds of a line from one of the old Pink Panther movies, when he was in Hong Kong I think, "We followed them down to the docks, to the Lee Kee shipyards." Still cracks me up.

we have a set of what look like the $1100 supersprint copies on our challenge e30 m20 engine. 2 3-into1 sections and a lower xpipe. they look cool, sound great, and for $166 shipped from hong kong i'm not complaining, but the fit between cyl-3 and cyl-4 was so bad if i had paid a shop to modify them it probably would have been cheaper to buy the awesome fitting pricey supersprints from the start.

having done the work myself i'd still do it again, at least for a very close starting point for the money, but i'd say buy at your own risk.

Some are nice, some are crap and that's the point, it's a crap shoot and you have little recourse if it is crap.

I've been playing with Quaife and Wavetrac diffs and while the OBXs are half the price, I think I'd rather stick with the stuff that I can return if it gets borked.

Now, there are plenty of US companies that are sourcing manufacturing overseas and if THEY are backing up their product, then that's a little different than just going through an eBay faceless storefront.

yes, chinese knockoffs from known companies is one thing. Knockoffs from some nameless, souless ebay seller is playing the odds.

I've got an XS power (a fleabay-quality, "no name", Chinese brand AFAIK) header for my SE-R which turned out to be a really good quality part. Welds are good, fit was perfect and, based on how its held up over 3 winters and 30k miles, the stainless steel even seems to be of decent quality. It was about 1/2 the price of some of the equivalent "name brand" units which, according to some of the SE-R boards, don't hold up well over time and cost about 2X as much new. (Of 3X as much if you're talking aout NISMO parts) So, yes, you can get a decent parts at discount prices. You can also get complete crap, sometimes from brand name companies.

"Car specific" message boards and research are your friends. The nice thing is if a part is crap, you can rest assured someone will complain about it.

Per Schroeder wrote: Some are nice, some are crap and that's the point, it's a crap shoot and you have little recourse if it is crap. I've been playing with Quaife and Wavetrac diffs and while the OBXs are half the price, I think I'd rather stick with the stuff that I can return if it gets borked. Now, there are plenty of US companies that are sourcing manufacturing overseas and if THEY are backing up their product, then that's a little different than just going through an eBay faceless storefront.

This might be worth a try with an OBX diff depending on one's budget, time, experience, yada yada yada

http://rbryant.freeshell.org/obx_washers.htm

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/reader-rides/1091/headers

They work fine for me. I ran them on track all season and I wasn't exactly wanting for power. Put it this way - the car made solid dyno numbers with stock internals (233wHP) as a result of a lot of things but these headers were certainly not hurting my results in any way. At $129 they were... oohhhh... about $1450 cheaper than the ones that are touted as magic (mostly by the people who sell them and tools who buy german snake oil for $1600).

One common theme I've noticed is that I almost never hear a good thing about the no-name headers on turbo cars. These are a much more demanding application compared to a naturally aspirated car, and a lot less forgiving of poor welds or inferior metallurgy. The same faults that can kill a turbo header in a month might not even make a difference on a header for a naturally aspirated motor.

My boss bought a set of eBay turbo headers out of curiosity. They were advertised as fitting, among other things, his '76 Nova. They looked fairly nice if you didn't examine the weld penetration too closely, but there was no way they could have fit in that car without a rack and pinion conversion. Ended up ordering some Canadian-made iron turbo manifolds instead.

Hey guys!

My name is Randy Villanueva and I am one of the sales team from Bisimoto engineering! I wanted to chime in and comment on this as I noticed we popped up, although they are able to replicate our design these Ebay header(s) are not truly up to par with our units!

How so? Well each header is done custom to our clients, so for all they know the header that was sent overseas to be replicated could have been some 2 liter stroked D series motor! The reason each of our headers make good power and gains is because we custom suit them and tailor them to each customer; this Ebay vendor cannot say the same!

Although Ebay stuff is hit or miss, I would still rather save up and drop money on something I know I have customer support with! Plus investing in US Companies just helps strengthen our economy, so why not?

Lol, but in either event the Ebay knock offs of our Bisimoto headers are $355, we currently off ours for $360 shipped, so why not go with the original?

Thats just my opinion though...

Questions, comments, concerns? Randy@Bisimoto.com

In reply to Randull:

I can go with that (the $355 vs $360 argument). I think its tough in other applications for folks to justify or even be able to front the 2-3x cost that it takes to get the "name brand" E36 M3. I understand it, I agree with it, but when it comes time to spend the money--- its tough when you have 100 other competing issues for that same dollar. I shouldn't got to harbor freight and buy their stuff, but I do, and its because it is what I can afford, and is what I choose to afford.

You pays your money, you takes your chances I guess. Problem is, the chinese manufacturers are actually getting pretty good at what they're doing. Just wish and hope that they aren't stealing designs from other folks without paying the designer. I know that's wishful.

Randull wrote: Hey guys! My name is Randy Villanueva and I am one of the sales team from Bisimoto engineering! I wanted to chime in and comment on this as I noticed we popped up, although they are able to replicate our design these Ebay header(s) are not truly up to par with our units! How so? Well each header is done custom to our clients, so for all they know the header that was sent overseas to be replicated could have been some 2 liter stroked D series motor! The reason each of our headers make good power and gains is because we custom suit them and tailor them to each customer; this Ebay vendor cannot say the same! Although Ebay stuff is hit or miss, I would still rather save up and drop money on something I know I have customer support with! Plus investing in US Companies just helps strengthen our economy, so why not? Lol, but in either event the Ebay knock offs of our Bisimoto headers are $355, we currently off ours for $360 shipped, so why not go with the original? Thats just my opinion though... Questions, comments, concerns? Randy@Bisimoto.com

It pained me to see the D-Series headers being knocked off already. I have been in product development and manufacturing for 30+ years and my off the cuff guess on the development cost of the headers was 100-150K (besides the running cost of already having all the tools, puters, software, space, know how, engines, instrumentation, vendor relationships, insurance, time, , , , , ). If that development cost number is available it might be educational for folks.

hahahahahaha.......

I have to BEG to get a decent header for a rwd 4AGE...

The "cheap stuff" OBX/Tseudo is absolute garbage in design, with primaries more suited to a 9k-10k rpm engine then a street engine.

Any decent rwd 4AGE header BEGINS @ $900, and only goes up from there!

$1250 $1600

http://www.jspfab.com/catalog/i64.html

http://www.jspfab.com/catalog/i63.html

Per Schroeder wrote: Some are nice, some are crap and that's the point, it's a crap shoot and you have little recourse if it is crap. I've been playing with Quaife and Wavetrac diffs and while the OBXs are half the price, I think I'd rather stick with the stuff that I can return if it gets borked. Now, there are plenty of US companies that are sourcing manufacturing overseas and if THEY are backing up their product, then that's a little different than just going through an eBay faceless storefront.

Therein lies the rub. eBay = $100 shipped. Supersprint = $1700???

Is there middle ground? OBD-II 2.8 if it matters.

bludroptop wrote:

Per Schroeder wrote: Some are nice, some are crap and that's the point, it's a crap shoot and you have little recourse if it is crap. I've been playing with Quaife and Wavetrac diffs and while the OBXs are half the price, I think I'd rather stick with the stuff that I can return if it gets borked. Now, there are plenty of US companies that are sourcing manufacturing overseas and if THEY are backing up their product, then that's a little different than just going through an eBay faceless storefront.

Therein lies the rub. eBay = $100 shipped. Supersprint = $1700??? Is there middle ground? OBD-II 2.8 if it matters.

The ones I got from fleabay were from Raceland in Nevada. They were something closer to $140 shipped but I called them and spoke to a real, English-speaking human who gave me some measurements before I paid. They also said that one of the guys that works there had them on his S50 swapped E30. They did require that I drill the holes out to fit them but otherwise all the other fit issues were related to my repositioning of the motor and not the product.

http://stores.ebay.com/Raceland-USA-LLC-Sparks-Nevada

i had megan racing tubular manifold on my sr20, daily driven, 15psi no issues sold the car with tthem on there...

i agree on some ridiculous prices to offset the r&d but idk...most people would like to afford parts for their car...

My friend has had a set of ebay headers on his E46 325i for a few years and they are still uh headering. I'm not sure if they were OBX, but they were surprisingly decent for the price. They seemed kind of thin (probably 18ga), but were 304SS.

OBX just reproduces the designs of the higher end headers. Biggest savings is from them not having the (expensive) CARB exemption. Apparently that little badge doubles the price af a header...

Change the bolts and washers in an OBX LSD and it's good to go.. many Honda guys in the 10's with them.

I think the biggest issues with the turbo manifolds is no one supports the turbo. I have heard guys running OBX/SSAC manifolds with no issues, as long as they take the weight of the turbo off of the tubular manifold. But, you should be doing this for expensive tubular manifolds as well, let the runners expand/contract freely.