Racing Beat knockoff header

I've learned something from my foray into the bottom-of-the-barrel cheap parts: There are two levels of shitty.

Level One: Low price, good build quality, but materials that aren't the most durable perhaps because of lower quality.
Level Zero: Lowest price, terrible build quality, horrendous materials.

My recent reviews of Raceland's header put them squarely into Level One. Their header is well built, looks good out of the box and is well supported. They also have a real company/brand name to uphold, as evidenced by their stickers and catalog included in the order. Their downfall is that their steel isn't pure/robust enough to stand up to the harshest commutes through aggressively salted Chicago interstates. I'm confident that someone living in, say Florida, would be perfectly happy with their product.

This one, on the other hand, is simply not worth a purchase. I don't mean to single out SpeedyRacer--an eBay seller--as there are multiple people peddling this shoddy product. It's the only header that imitates the Racing Beat with a 4-1 design (all the others imitate the 4-2-1 or Tri-Y design of the Jackson Racing); since the Racing Beat is reportedly the best off-the-shelf header out there, it's truly unfortunate that the only imitation is so incredibly awful.

See for yourself in the slideshow. The welds are so awful, I'm surprised I didn't find welding rod sticking out of them. I wonder if they're even airtight. I saw one car with this header at SCCA Solo Nationals (STS class), and wasn't surprised to find it was rusting just like my Raceland unit--though that particular car certainly didn't see the heavy winter commuting duty that mine did.

The final straw--and this really killed me, because I was nearing the end of my engine swap at the time, filled with exhaustion, frustration at already too many broken surprises, and anxious to hit the road--was that it just didn't fit. It hit the flat horizontal part of the body below the brake and clutch master cylinders. I was so goddamn angry when I couldn't get the piece of cockblasting assnugget* to fit that I literally bounced it off the fucking concrete floor and across the garage.

Since I've seen this header fit on other cars and it's gotten some positive eBay responses, I can conclusively say their quality control department and the jig they use to build this header are both not very consistent. And, judging by the fact that a magnet will stick to certain parts of it--most notably the bends, as demonstrated in the slideshow--they clearly use ultra-low quality stainless steel too.

By "they," of course, I mean whoever makes this piece of garbage, not Speedyracer or any other eBay vendor--though they are responsible for selling a shit product. Much to that vendor's credit, they did take a return on the header even though it was past the 30-day return period. So thank you, Speedyracer, for not totally screwing me.

There you have it, friends: real buying advice. Don't buy the absolute cheapest garbage. Pay a little extra instead. I'd buy the Raceland header again. You couldn't pay me to use this one--which is just as well, since it seems to no longer be available on eBay.

*I'm a classy guy.

A eulogy.

And so it goes. I tapped the rocker panel with my foot as I left work last Thursday. Really, it was a light tap. And the tip of my shoe busted it in, because it was nothing but paint. I suppose it's just as well. When it happened Thursday, I snapped this photo with the expectation of making a humorous post about it here. Instead, it has become bittersweet.

I'll spare you the details; Eric will be posting soon on the Team Resignation blog about how it all went down. Suffice it to say that the race car's engine blew up, and swapping in the one from my ZX2 was the only viable option to keep us on the track.

So that's what we did.

Which makes it pretty official. After roughly a hundred thousand miles across six and a half years of service in my hands, my daily driver is dead. Its 210-thousand-mile engine lives on in the race car, and soon too will its wiring harness and perhaps front control arms. Which gives it a status not unlike an organ donor (except, you know, less important).

Little car, you have served me well. I'm sad you're gone, but your final days weren't exactly your best.

• You had an evap system leak I refused to fix. I had pulled those vacuum hoses and plugged the intake manifold with electrical tape. This also meant the HVAC fan would only blow at the windshield.
• You had a loud clunk from the front suspension which I'm pretty sure was broken sway bar links, but never put in the effort to check.
• You had been backed into a faucet and your rear bumper was screwed back into place. A week later, the mirror got busted off on the corner of the same house and was reattached with the same screws as the bumper.
• Your exhaust was beginning to leak, making you noisier by the week.
• Your third gear hadn't been working for several years.
• Your shifter bushings were completely shot, and the shifter buzzed loudly at nearly all times.
• Your rear defroster never worked.
• You had bald tires on ugly Escort GT fan-blade wheels.
• Your rear speakers would crackle at the mere suggestion of bass.
• I planned to never wash you again.

But despite all this, you unfailingly, albeit noisily, carried me to work. Took Amanda and I on a camping trip to Michigan. Were flung over a set of railroad tracks daily at 70 mph so I could get sweet air. And so on, and so on.

Goodbye, dependable commuter car. I have no choice now but to keep what I need and part out what I don't. It's not an elegant death, true. But I hope your heart lasts long enough to propel us into the top ten next year. You can do it. You've survived worse.

Glorious free parts!

This is the engine block and transmission I got for free. I've always been jealous of people with stories of a friend who was throwing out a turbo, or had a coilover kit sitting around collecting rust, or a big block race motor they never used. I also never believed I'd be on the receiving end of such a bargain, but I am once again proven wrong. These were listed in the Rockford Craigslist. The guy apparently had several people express interest in the thing merely so they could scrap it. He held on to it in the hopes of finding someone who could get some use out of it. Enter me.

This drivetrain sat outside, exposed to the elements for a whole winter. Yes, without a cylinder head on it. Surprisingly enough, I think it's salvageable. I had to separate the engine and trans in order to carry the things a hundred yards up a steep hill to my car. It was exhausting, but well worth it. I'm regularly making liberal applications of PB Blaster and/or WD-40 to the cylinders with the hope of breaking them loose eventually. This is a project for late summer, fall, or winter, depending on the progress on my other project(s).

In the plastic bag is a head, sans cams or lifters, that I borrowed from Duncan. Once I get around to actually attempting to rebuild this thing, I may rebuild his head so everything is ready to just drop in when I swap it. I probably won't use the transmission but to take it apart, clean it up, see how it all works, and sell it.

Here's a closeup of the pistons and cylinder bores (shitty picture, I know):