Cheap Headers, Expensive Install
 

So I bought some of those inexpensive headers off of Ebay...

like these...

ebay headers

I took my car into an independent Porsche mechanic here in Austin and they said it would be be about $250 to install them. He said something about moving the first set of O2 sensors back to the rear set of cats. But those wouldn't reach that far so he was going to use a new set of the rear 02 sensors in place of the old front sensors. Then he'd have to reprogram the OBC to clear the CEL. All in all he said it would be about $2000 with the cost of the new sensors. Seems like a lot to me. Any advise? I told him to hold off and I'm going to get another estimate from another place.

I would say screw his suggestion and just install the headers and install the o2 sensors in there normal locations and be on your way.

But the headers will require deleting one set of cats, what should I do with those 02 sensors? Lose them all together? I expected that I'd need to delete the cats but from the posts I've read it sounded pretty straight forward. Remove old headers, emove first set of cats, install the new ones, either remove the first set of O2 sensors or put them post cat and then reprogram the OBC for the CEL. Still I can't seem to add up his costs. O2 sensors are around $250-$400 right? so why did he quote me $2200. Is the difference the cost in reprogramming the OBC? Is that normal for that to be so much?

I assume this is a 2000 or newer car? You do need to move the back O2 sensors downstream of the main cats (from downstream of the precats, which are gone now) to keep the CEL off. You don't need a new O2 sensor though, you can either splice into the existing cable or make a cable extension. $200 seems pretty pricey for welding a couple of bungs, a little soldering and unbolting/bolting. You don't really need a Porsche specialist to do this job, any muffler shop (gasp) could do it.

So then the $2200 price is WAY pricey right? I'm still trying to figure out why so much.

Oh, and sorry about the eggs CJ, that sucks.

Well, maybe my experience will help. Even though I didn't have to have O2's moved, my 99 2.5L needed a lot of work to get out the sheared exhaust header bolts. New studs were put in and I had the studs removed from the cats and bolts put in. Then I had them put everything back together so I could just drive it home.
It cost me $1300 after tax and that was for $10 in parts and almost 14 hours of labor. How much is that charging per hour?

Also, I bought the headers from Maxspeed and they have the plugs already for the O2's if you had to move them. Maybe different headers would help?

Chris

From the pic on the auction it looks like those headers are drilled for o2 sensors.... just have them put there...and take Blue2000s suggestion.

That's my setup, the first pair of o2 sensors are in the bungs on the headers and the second pair at the cats... no CEL and I've been driving it a little over a year now.

I have sport cats though with the second set of o2's after them so I didn't have to have bungs drilled to move my second set of o2s

My advise would be to look elsewhere.

That guy has NO catalytic converters. Of course he's going to get a check engine light. I posted a little while back a solution to trick the ECU into thinking it's seeing a clean signal by some wiring work. Dangling the rear O2 sensors will probably work too but Tim still has the main set of cats from what I can tell. He may as well keep things emissions legal.

My exhaust job is in the works right now. I found a local muffler shop that has mandrel bent tubing. He's fabbing me up some secondary cat deletes with the elbows to connect to my Stebro. I ordered some high flow cats to fit and am trying to get the proper o2 sensor bungs. Then I'm going to weld the bungs in the secondary cats and extend the wires to the rear cats. Those same ebay headers you purchased I'm going to also.

At the independent euro garage that I use, labor to install the headers was $200. I bought the Maxspeed headers that had two bungs per header so they just had to place the O2 sensors in approximately the same location. I get a CEL every other month or so but it takes 30 seconds to clear with an OBDII reader. I bought a couple of sensor extenders that will move the rear sensor out about 3/4 of an inch. I've seen similiar extenders prefabbed on some 996 headers. Thought I'd give it a try as they are only about $10.