Question about headers

I have a 89 XJ with 4.0 and auto tranny. I can not seem to find a aftermarket header anywhere that will work for me. I have found some for same year and engine, but manual transmission only, what gives? Do I have to live with my crappy stock exhaust set up forever?

Ive got a 89 as well and its an automatic their are headers out their but cost way to much. So their are some options....
A. Go to a custom shop and see if they can fab up some headers for you which sometimes can take a lot of time... and is definatly gonna cost a lot of money.
B. Find someone in your area who knows how to weld, search some sites for header ideas...maybe plans.
C. Find someone who is tryign to sell their header.
D. have a welder? be adventurous try and make your own.

I redid my entire exhaust system bit by bit. I unfortuantly had a shop make me headers I went cheap and had them make it outa some thin steal that didnt hold up as well as I hoped. Cost to much money didnt last long enough. Now I got some rusty scrap metal and no need for it. If I were you I would redo the entire exhaust if you want sound and performance. Do it up! Find someone local who has some spare time and will do it if you help them out or something. Or pay top dollar and get a exhaust system that you cant be proud of cause you werent part of its creation.....

rip said:

I have a 89 XJ with 4.0 and auto tranny. I can not seem to find a aftermarket header anywhere that will work for me. I have found some for same year and engine, but manual transmission only, what gives? Do I have to live with my crappy stock exhaust set up forever?

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I got a borla header, but nod..they're not inexpensive. 1989 with automatic. Redid the entire exhaust cept for keeping the old still functioning cat. Only problem I had (other than denting the entire exhaust on 4dyce) was some problem (motor mount?) that caused the driveshaft to eat into the exhaust pipe coming down off the header. Didn't eat all the way thru, but bent the fawk out of it but now it ah..has clearance. iratefla

the Borla is a bolt on; including the down pipe to cat. (89 with AW-4)
If you have a lift many headers will get hit by the front shaft - the MOPAR one includes instructions that state this.
At stock height the Borla (and th MOPAR one are fine.

The Summit catalog Has a header calle ther Pacesetter that is for 87 and up I think. Does anyone have any experience with this one?

mountaindrew said:

The Summit catalog Has a header calle ther Pacesetter that is for 87 and up I think. Does anyone have any experience with this one?

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I was also going to mention the pacesetter. I found that years ago when I was looking to replace the cracked manifold on my '91 trouble is it only fits '87-'90. Won't work on HO 4.0s. However now that we also have an '89 with a cracked manifold I'm interested to know if anyone has tried this header. The '89 manifold is getting very bad ('91 hasn't gotten any worse in 5 years, very small crack), and this header is much cheaper than a new manifold. In fact it's so cheap compared to anything else that I'm hesitant to buy one without hearing of anyone who's tried one.

Tony

I'd stay away from Pacesetter if I were you. They are notorious for making crap. I've never dealt with any of their truck producs but I have dealt with their sport compact products. Poor fit, cheap production methods, cheap materials (rusts quickly).. you get what you pay for and Pacesetter is one of the poster children for that statement.

sph33r said:

I'd stay away from Pacesetter if I were you. They are notorious for making crap. I've never dealt with any of their truck producs but I have dealt with their sport compact products. Poor fit, cheap production methods, cheap materials (rusts quickly).. you get what you pay for and Pacesetter is one of the poster children for that statement.

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I would agree with most of that however I've had my Pacesetter header on my '90 since 1997 or so and have put over 150,000 miles on it and it is still going strong. It does seem to be kind of thin walled tube so I thoroughly expected it to rust through by now but it hasn't yet. There were some problems with fitment that made the replacing a little more fun but not too bad so if you are looking for something to drop in without much fuss, you will probably want to spend a bit more. I only paid about 139.00 back in '97 when the next cheapest was a Borla at about 300.00 so it was definitely worth it to at least try to make it work. For me it was money well spent.

ACE said:

It does seem to be kind of thin walled tube so I thoroughly expected it to rust through by now but it hasn't yet.

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That more than likely has to do with location.. Michigan loves salt in the winter so everything rusts here eventually A friend of mine had a pacesetter exhaust back in 98 that lasted maybe a year and a half before rotting through. If you live in a warmer climate area or an area where salt isn't an issue, maybe it's worth it if you want to go cheap. Fitment is usually a bit of a hassle with the cheaper products but never anything huge.

I would also question the flow and actual power gains.. You have to wonder how much R&D was put into these super cheap designs other than "Lets make a header, sell it and get rich"