Headers in contact with firewall?!?

[ferreed]

Howdy, folks.I'm just finishing up putting my wife's '90 240sx back together from its recent rebuild. Last night I tore out the old exhaust in front of the cat and installed headers. Her stock manifod was cracked badly, so we got a set of Pacesetters to replace them with. Now, I've read some bad stuff here about Pacesetter, but my understanding was their KA24E headers were pretty ok. Anyway, the problem we have is that the headers are in contact with the firewall. I don't like the strain that would seem to put on them, and definitely don't like the idea of setting the interior ablaze. Anyone run into this before or had to deal with a similar problem? I'm looking for ideas, specifically what I might have done wrong or what I might do to rectify this.

Thanks!

[ferreed]

Well, I found the problem-- ME!

In case anyone else ever has this problem, check and make sure both motor mounts have seated properly. My driver-side mount had its little indexing dimple caught on the lip of the piece of frame it drops down into. Difficult to see that it is binding without getting under there and looking closely. I jacked under the motor just slightly and it slid back into place onece I had unloaded it and pushed just a little. The headers now have maybe 1/2" between them and the firewall.

I think I should sleep more. Or drink more mountain dew. Yeah, that'd do it.

[midnightsliding]

im glad to herer that u fixed ur problem , i herd fomr ppl the the OBX header O2 sensor hits the firewall

[ferreed]

Man, that would suck to go through all the trouble to find interference somewhere. I disabled the EGR and AIV on this one, so I'm not sure if those would have required plumbing them a different way or not. The ports on the header look to be in different places than the stock manifold, but I may be hallucinating. It's happened before.

[eddiec]

if you take the header off make a template w/ cardboard and port match the header.

[Veriest1]

if you take the header off make a template w/ cardboard and port match the header.

I'm assuming this would mean a template of the exhaust outlets on the head or inlets on the header depending on which one is bigger? Or is one always going to be larger?