i don't own a rx-7 yet, but as soon as a find a buyer for my celica that will change. i have a '88 celica gt-s i'm trying to sell, but with no luck so far. anyhoo, i noticed pacesetter made some headers for the fc (model i want). my question is does anyone have these and what were the power gains? how hard was the installation of 'em? i know pacesetter can make some real crap, but in most cases you gain at least a couple ponies for relatively cheap. anyways, anyone own 'em?

 

my understanding is that they are absolute crap. yes you will gain hp. but the qualitly of pascetter is aweful. the car will sound aweful to b/c the headers suck. I would spend the extra money to get racingbeat or mindtrain

 

Ive heard that pacesetter headers quality sucks too, but I think that they are the only brand that will bolt up to stock cat ,and have a 02 senser hole. Is this correct, or does anyone know any other brands that do this also? Most ones ive seen require custom exhaust work, or a racepipe or something. I was thinking of getting them also, for this reason only, not because I think they are better than any other header.

 

MindTrain has a street (i.e. w/ O2 bung) header that bolts to the stock cat. But you could also just have a muffler shop make a short extention to do the same thing with the Racing Beat. However, headers are a complete waste on a car with a stock cat, IMO. What I did was get a Racing Beat downpipe and presilencer, which bolts between the stock exhaust manifold and the cat back (replacing all the cats). While this certainly isn't emissions legal, it is remarkable easy to swap back and forth when I need to take it in for a test.

The Racing Beat one sells for around $300, but is modular (you can reuse the presilencer if you later upgrade to a header). Rotary Performance has some for about half that price, but it's a slightly cheaper construction and not modular. Either will give you more power than running a header into the stock cat. In my 89 GTUs, the power increase was 22 hp at the rear wheels, with the stock cat back.

 

i have the pacesetter headers on my gtu. they certainly aren't best quality but bolted in fine and i've had no problems in 2yrs . for a $100 you can't beat it. i know racingbeat is better but for the price the tradeoffs in quality are worth it

 

If you dont have money buy pacesetter and a thick exhaust gasket cause it will help with the leaks...woohoo but if you can wait, wait and open up your exhaust starting with your cat and then mufflers or vicaversa worry about header last. Just my 2 cents on how i would do the exhaust. - Gabe

 

here is my o-pin-e-yen on exhaust my 88 na i put on a 2.5"apexi N1 dual with a bonez cat that cost 300 or s for the cat 700 + for the rest. i put it on not much different from the factory took off the cat and it was UNBELIVEABLE the difference but you need 2psi so put a pre-silencer and a racing beat header and i think that is the best combo you could have

 

Whats a pre-silencer and what does it do for the 7?

 

Hey Blake, did you have any other mods to your car while you put your downpipe/presilencer to net you 22 hp?

 

Nothing that affects power -- I did the clutch, but that's about it. I suspect there is much more power (10-15 hp) to be found in a new cat back.

 

A presilencer is a kind of straight-through muffler placed somewhere in front of the main muffler (usually where the cat would go). It's job is not to reduce noise level per se, but absorb some of the really high-pitch tones that are soooooo anyoying. What you end up with is a more pleasant, deep tone, instead of the chainsaw-on-crack sound that can drive grown men to cry. You only need one when the catalytic converters are removed, as those are very good (but restrictive) mufflers. Since rotary engines put out such hot exhaust, presilencers must be packed with very durable, high-temp materials, like stainless steel mesh. The commonly seen "glass-packs" sold at autoparts stores will not last more than a short while (minutes; not hours, days, ...) on a rotary engine. The better ones are from Racing Beat, Mind Train, and Rotary Performance (rx7.com). Racing Beat builds them like tanks and charges for the durability. Same thing with Mind Train. Rotary Performance, however, makes a very respectible but inexpensive alternative. As always, you get what you pay for.

 

How much are the Pacesetter header? I just ordered my modified Racing beat header and it was $200. You can have a shop do piping for prolly $100 more or so so it works with whatever you want. Unless that header is less than $100 I wouldn't get it. Its reknowned for being cheap, not just in price.

 

Blake:


I saw before that you dynoed the car with a cone intake and the downpipe/presilencer together. I believe that you dynoed it before with the intake as well but those kind of mods help each other. As you opened the exhaust you got more out of the intake so really you didn't get the 22 rwhp from ONLY the downpipe/presilencer, correct?