[RESOLVED] pacesetter turbo manifold any good? (No.) [Merged 5-8]

[tsiawdspeed]

I was looking in a magazine and they said that Pacesetter made a header for the turbo. Does anyone know about the quality or performance of the header?

 

[Denji]

My friend installed a Pacesetter exhaust manifold on his gsx eclipse.. It had black paint that was never intended to be exposed to heat that burnt off for the first day and smelled like ass. It also shifts your turbo over about an inch to the left and makes a real pain out of the install if you have a 14b (i dont know about other turbo setups, but his setup was a pain because the licp would hit the radiator after the install and had to be cut and rewelded.). Also, invest in some new gaskets, the ones they send you are trash and WILL leak and WILL not seal correctly.

Of course the problem with the 14b was with a 2g and hard lower intercooler piping. So it may not apply to you.

 

[MaNGiNa24]

Slow Boy Racing has thier own cast exhaust manifold that flows more than an evo's which will be equivelent to your ported 2g.

 

[Denji]

The dreaded install that took us about a day and a half after we installed the header, burned paint, then blew gasket, replaced gasket and finally got it running right.

 

[Lunch_Box]

Pacesetter is a hunk of shit, do a search and find out for yourself.

 

[blcknspo0ln]

affirm. feedback on pacesetters is horrible.

go with a ported 2g mani, it's flows enough to get you well into 400whp

 

[BOOSTIN21]

Slow Boy Racing has thier own cast exhaust manifold that flows more than an evo's which will be equivelent to your ported 2g.

I believe that the SBR will out flow a ported 2g manifold.

Yeah dont buy pacesetter :thumbdown total crap I have heard nothing but bad news about pacesetter. its like OBX or Iceman, get a cast manifold

 

[blcknspo0ln]

its like OBX

careful , they make independent performance parts now

 

[prostreetdsmx1]

careful , they make independent performance parts now

:laugh: well played.

 

[ALLBoostAWD]

Cool. Thanks for the feedback, looks like im going with the SBR mani.

 

[sjwelna]

Definitely buy the ported SBR mani, I got mine and I love it. No problems so far and it spools a 14b like a top on 3" exaust. Can't wait to see what it does for my gt30r once i get it on......

 

[99gst_racer]

affirm. feedback on pacesetters is horrible.

go with a ported 2g mani, it's flows enough to get you well into 400whp

I agree. A ported 2G manifold will be the best bang for the buck. But if you got the $, the SBR's are really nice. Here's a quick pic showing the difference of a ported 2G and a stock 1G manifold. See for yourself.

 

[TsiNoob]

A 2g Manifold bolts up to a 7-bolt 1g correct? I was told it did but wanted to be sure. I can get a brand new 2g mani from my work for 160.

 

[Steve93Talon]

To be clear, that pic above is a 1G AUTO manifold, the 5spd outlet is the same size as a 2G.

 

[1993eclipseGS]

A 2g Manifold bolts up to a 7-bolt 1g correct? I was told it did but wanted to be sure. I can get a brand new 2g mani from my work for 160.

It will bolt up to any 90-99 4g63

 

[blcknspo0ln]

not sure if the outlet of the 1g manifold is the same as a 2g.. but i know for sure that the 2g is better flowing [ i.e., bigger runners ]

 

[eclipse98GST]

if you want to get a quality tubular manifold go with the DN Performance tubular manifolds. A definite performance gain. and they look great on the car.

 

[XtremeGST]

i bought a pacesetter header on ebay, for 40$ and they SUCK HORRIBLY! the gaskets are actually GREAT! only if u get the surface on the headers machined to a nice smooth surface. the header did crack only on the welds. the tubing is good material but the welds SUCK ASS!! i still use them today because i machined it down for 10$ and rewelded the piping. it works great now! just takes alil beefing up to do.

 

[99gst_racer]

To be clear, that pic above is a 1G AUTO manifold, the 5spd outlet is the same size as a 2G.

Thanks for the clarification. I honestly didnt know there was a difference between the AT and manual outlet sizes. Why did they do it like that?

 

[slow_talon]

I just bought the slowboyracing manifold. I can't wait for it to get here since the one that came on my 1g awd was leaking so i decided to order sbr manifold with the 4 layer gasket and the studs will see how this thing will flow with the 16g installed.

 

[dhermann]

I have had the Pacesetter headers on my 1g TSi AWD for almost a year now. The gaskets were in fact crap. They blew out on the second day of driving-- ever had your car sound like a volkswagen bug before? Then the gaskets were basically stuck to the headers and took some huge work to get off (including gasket scraping and sanding). So I bought a good Mitsu flange gasket and a Mr. Gasket copper exhaust gasket (head to headers). Then the welds on the flanges cracked on two seperate occasions, once at the head flange and once at the turbo flange. So with a short trip to the welding shop I was good to go and have had no other problems. If I would have purchased the good metal gaskets in the first place and had the flange welds strenghtened like everyone said I should then I would have had absolutely no problems. Anyway, the gaskets cost $8 and $20 and the welding and grinding cost me $25 so after $53 more I have a good set of headers that helped lower my spool up RPM's by about 500 and seemed to give the car a little more low to mid range power. I wrapped them in some Thermo-tec header wrap and high temp silicone exhaust spray coating and they are fine- no rusting, etc. just my 2 cents anyway. It almost seems as though everyone knows someone who has the Pacesetters but never has purchased them for their own car. Now you have my first hand input.

 

[Keenen_917]

The pacesetter header flows much better than any mani you can buy for about 185 bucks the people installing the pacesetter header must be crazy to use the gaskets pacsetter provides use the stock gasket from the head to the mani and spend 15 bucks more and buy a metal gasket for the mani to turbo. I'd go with the pacesetter and save 300 bucks for a turbo rather then buying a 500 dollar mani. And of course the black paint is going to melt off you bought the mani for 180.00 don't be cheap send it out to jet hot or some place have it blasted and have a high heat ceramic dip put on it. I have pacesetter mani and 3 inch downpipe and I love both of em

 

[joeracer321]

I feel the same way; that most people that are negative towards the Pacesetter manifold, probably never owned one. As mentioned in another identical post to this one, I have a ceramic coated model and it is very nice. Though there are some features that I do not like about it. The gaskets are absolutely junk! Also They could have welded the tubes into the flange from the rear of the flange rather than on the mounting surface. It seals, but it could be better. If anything does happen to it, I will be sure to post my results here. But so far so good.

 

[4geze63]

heres picks of a ported slowboy vs a 1g

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I can notice a increase in spool time slightly, long storey short get the slowboy over anything imo, you should stick with a cast manifold anyways on the lower hp apps.


99 GST Racer, why is it that my stock 1g manifold looks nothing like yours, position of collector/size?, yours is so small

 

[99gst_racer]

99 GST Racer, why is it that my stock 1g manifold looks nothing like yours, position of collector/size?, yours is so small

Like someone said, it's because mine came off of an automatic. I'm not sure why they made the AT manifolds so much smaller......

 

[Talonman]

The pacesetter header flows much better than any mani you can buy for about 185 bucks the people installing the pacesetter header must be crazy to use the gaskets pacsetter provides use the stock gasket from the head to the mani and spend 15 bucks more and buy a metal gasket for the mani to turbo. I'd go with the pacesetter and save 300 bucks for a turbo rather then buying a 500 dollar mani. And of course the black paint is going to melt off you bought the mani for 180.00 don't be cheap send it out to jet hot or some place have it blasted and have a high heat ceramic dip put on it. I have pacesetter mani and 3 inch downpipe and I love both of em

you can get the unpainted for $127 at Summitracing.com, I say unpainted b/c the paint on it is for shelf life protection and comes w/ a sticker that says to repaint it w/ high temp paint before you install it. I have the ceramic coated version for $256 and have had no problems going on 6 months now, hope it holds up. The ceramic coated should ease stress on the welds, HOt Rod mag reported something like 300* reduction in ambient temps underhood and even more on surface temps of runners. see my gallery, with an AMS 2.5" tubular 02 housing (recirc), ex depot 2.5 to 3" dp, no cat, ATR 3" catback. I spool a ported 7cm tdo5h 18g to 20 psi by 2900 rpm in 3rd gear/level road, in 5th gear on level road chugging along at 2000rpm it also spools 20psi by 2900 rpm, nice Im pleased with it so far.

I didnt try the gaskets, I just got an oem mitsu gasket (they are metal reinforced) and a slowboy SS mani to turbo gasket. The 4 layer copper looked like it wouldnt quite line up with the raised runner mating surfaces where it meets the head, most headers have these for sealing. DOnt sand these off, they are the welds! when the runners are welded from the backside of the flange as most headers are. some mani's have the welds on the front side but this method is weaker and not preferred (according to older muscle car friends I know). The copper gaskets port openings are much larger than the ports on the head b/c there is alot of mating surface room between a stock cast iron mani and the head, I wouldnt try them with this header anyway.