I installed my modified SSAC headers yesterday. (no sinktrap and a cat welded in)Took longer than I thought it would due to some mistakes on my part, but it's installed and running without any codes. I might have a slight leak on the v-band clamp, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix. I didn't take any pics yet and probably won't. I think everybody on here has seen enough pics of these style headers.
I started a thread a while back about ceramic coating headers and it left me with a few questions that I wanted data to prove or disprove. I bought a remote grill thermometer a month ago and have been monitoring my underhood temps. I put the probe near the throttlebody figuring it was up higher where heat wants to go and would give me some idea how hot it was in the engine compartment. When the car has been running for long enough to get everything good and hot, it reads about 30 degrees hotter than outside air temp while driving. It gets to about 50 degrees over ambient air when hot and idling without moving. It can get to 60-80 degrees over ambient about 5 mins after parking it when hot before temps start to drop. After installing the headers, I drove it for about 30-40 minutes and saw about 25 degrees hotter than ambient air while moving. I parked it and let it idle in the driveway when I got home and only saw about 40 degrees over ambient while idling. I want to watch the temps for a while and gather more data, but my initial conclusion is that stainless without ceramic coating does keep more heat in the pipes and does not cause more underhood heat than stock manifolds. Ceramic coating may be even better, but my concern was cooking things under the hood over time and now I'm not as concerned anymore. I"ll post updates on this if anybody else is interested in the final conclusion of my testing to determine the effect of headers on underhood temps.
