Fritz's Bits RHD header arrangement being fitted pictures

[DRP535]

Here are some shots of my RHD exhaust headers being fitted to my car. They were taken to illustrate a small problem with the fitting which I want to make the vendor aware of. As can be seen there isn't a lot of room down there for a decent exhaust on a RHD. There's going to be a S/S fabricated heat shield on top of the steering box housing as well which isn't there yet. The hot side hose of the A/C has been rotated around a bit to get it as far away from the No. 1 primary as possible and will be insulated with some of that alfoil reflective wrap as well. The cold end of the power steering pump (the bit that is constantly fed with oil from the power steering compressor) will remain unprotected simply because there's nowhere a heat shield can be mounted between the pipes and the housing.

Even the gap between the worm wheel housing of the steering box and the pipes is so small that there might be slight bending of the shield required to provide an extra 2-3mm of clearance to allow the engine to twist under torque on the mounts without hitting it. It is super-tight down there on a RHD.

[coopa.s]

How long did the install take, it really is a tight squeeze on our RHD cars hey!

What is the whole system comprising of? Are you deleting the resonator or the cat?

[DRP535]

How long did the install take, it really is a tight squeeze on our RHD cars hey!

It hasn't finished yet! These photos were taken yesterday and that's where my car still is today. It has been there for 3 days so far. There is a small problem with the shape and length of the secondary down pipes which needs to be corrected. Also I don't like the way the secondary pipes are designed to be joined to the headers, ie. by sleeve joint and U-bolt clamp arrangement. Once the U-bolt has rusted they'll be no way of dropping the exhaust system without either cutting or unbolting the whole thing right back at the engine. Neither of those options are acceptable to me, so there needs to be some welding of 3-bolt flanges on instead so it can be bolted together. These mods and the custom heat shield for the steering box are taking extra time.

What is the whole system comprising of?

6 bits in total:

2 x 3-into-1 headers. The front one has a detachable No. 1 primary pipe with a sleeve joint under the engine mount. It has to be detachable for fitting but once in place and bolted up neither piece has anywhere to go and can't move so the sleeve joint needs no clamp or welding. Just some exhaust sealing compound is more than enough.

2 x secondary downpipes

2 x 3-bolt exhaust flanges provided for bolting the downstream end of the secondary pipes to the input of the central muffler.

Are you deleting the resonator or the cat?

On my car the cat has already been discarded and the whole central muffler arrangement replaced with the long sausage one from the E12 and E28 up to 1985 version. The lambda probe oxygen sensor has remained in the pipe there as you can see but is disconnected electrically.

The new arrangment will see the headers bolted via 3-bolt flanges to the secondary down pipes, all that ugly & horribly welded mish mash of bits of pipe back to the central muffler cut off and discarded entirely and the new S/S secondaries welded directly to the input of the central muffler instead.

So in the end there will only be two points at which the exhaust can be easily and non-destructively unbolted and detached. The extractors from the head and the secondary downpipes from the extractors. Hence when dropping the exhaust to work on the rear suspension for example, the whole thing from the extractors back to the rear bumper comes down in one piece.

[DRP535]

What is the whole system comprising of? Are you deleting the resonator or the cat?

The new stuff is only the headers and the secondary downpipes. Everything else is bog standard genuine BMW-issue. I particularly didn't want my car to sound any different at all so a free-flow larger bore system was never considered. If I wanted to be a boy-racer with a car that sounds like a helicopter, I'd buy a WRX and fit it with an anti-lag turbo off a Volvo Penta truck instead.

I realise that I'm not going to be getting the full potential or benefit from the headers by fitting them to the standard mufflers but that's okay by me. It's more important to me that I don't scare pedestrians and small animals than shave 3 tenths of a second from the 1/4 mile time.

[C.J.]

Oh c'mon dude, scaring pedestrians and small woodland creatures is fun!


Seriously though, your car looks good, and those headers are sexy.

[coopa.s]

So how do you get around rego without a cat? Have you just put the housing around the pipes?

[Aaron from Aus]

Nice!! You are going to love the sound.

Some of the best money i have spent on my car...Shame about having to have a heat shield..I dont have one..but it is beneficial...minus you cant stare at them.

SO throw out the radio...find a good city street or narrow country road with good echoing properties...and give it a squuirt.

[DRP535]

So how do you get around rego without a cat? Have you just put the housing around the pipes?

There is no annual inspection requirement for cars at licencing time in W.A. (yet). It's not like the MOT requirement in the U.K. for example. It is just assumed that the car is as it was when bought brand new, you pay the money and voila it's licenced.

The only drama you'll have is if you make modifications that visibly or audibly make the car obviously wildly different from standard. Very loud exhausts, very dark window tinting, very low suspensions, black tinted head/taillight lenses, ridiculous ricer bootlid wings and wheels that protrude out past the bodywork are the sort of things that will typically attract the attention of the police if they're not too busy setting up speed cameras of course. Then if they don't like the look of your face when they pull you over they may be inclined to slap a yellow (or red) sticker on your windshield. Then you've got a problem because to get the sticker off again the car does have to undergo the full house pits inspection which I think includes a TK test of exhaust gases. Obviously my car wouldn't pass that test with no cat when it's designed to have one but as long as I don't let the licence lapse or get a yellow sticker slapped on it by the police, that won't be a problem because there won't be a reason for it to ever be checked for the presence of a working cat.

There's no need for me to disguise the absence of a working cat by gutting an old one with straight through pipes or whatever because no-one in the state's licencing or police give a shit and won't check it anyway. The exhaust on Australian delivered cars changed in January 1986 anyway with the introduction of ULP. 1985 cars had the 10:1 motor, ran on the old 95 RON leaded fuel and had the old-school long sausage central muffler from the E12. 1986 cars had the 8:1 motor, ran on the new (at the time) 91 RON unleaded fuel and had the cat + shorter central muffler arrangement.

My car is a 1986 model. It's just that it now has the 1985 model exhaust system on it. When the law changes in W.A. and we need to get annual inspections for licencing, I'll try to pass the car off as a 1985 model rather than rebuild the exhaust back to 1986 spec. again.

[DRP535]

Nice!! You are going to love the sound.

It's finished now and I've just driven her home. Peak hour traffic and with a boot full of the old bits of the exhaust system, so not ideal conditions for a proper performance gains test, but even so I managed to give her a bit a squirt a couple of times and it's obvious there's a noticeable difference. The engine is much more eager to rev and does so from much lower down in the rev range as well. The feeling is like I've just had another powerchip fitted. Actually it's more significant than the addition of the powerchip was. The powerchip set your pants on fire from about 3,500rpm onwards. This exhaust does the same again but from about 2,000rpm instead.

The sound out the exhaust at the back is no different at all. I didn't want it to be which is why I hooked it up to my old standard mufflers. There is however more noise from underbonnet under acceleration. It's hard to describe but not particularly pleasant I have to say. It's a metallic kinda whoosh noise under load while accelerating. If I didn't know better I'd say it was induction noise but it isn't because nothing's changed in that area. I think it's the sound of the exhaust valves closing against their seats. I can possibly hear it now because they're obviously close to the pipes and the metal is transmitting that noise to become audible whereas before it was probably dulled or muffled by the mass of the cast iron manifolds. It's not horrendous by any means and if you didn't know the car as well as I do then you'd never notice it at all or think there was anything unusual about it. I am hoping it might settle down a bit with some carbon build up over time.

Some of the best money i have spent on my car...Shame about having to have a heat shield..I dont have one..but it is beneficial...minus you cant stare at them.

The heat shield is no where near as extensive as what you're thinking of. It's not the full boxed in covered apparatus you've seen on RHD Alpina conversions for example. That B9 that was for sale on eBay for ages in Melbourne is now over here and has that kind of shield mounted to the inner guard and completely conceals everything from view from above. No, it's nothing more than a bit of stainless plate screwed to the top of the steering box and to the A/C hose bracket to provide a bit of protection from the worst of the convected heat of the nearest pipe. You can still see the headers completely. What you can't see so clearly anymore is the top of the steering box.

In a couple of weeks or so, I'm taking her back to have the joints and flange bolts checked for security after a few heat cycles and I'll get her back up on the hoist again with the aircleaner off and take more photos of the finished job. This time knowing how to manually focus the camera so I don't have to rely on the dodgy autofocus which doesn't work well in complicated areas of detail like engine bays.

It really is very pretty from underneath and a huge improvement from what was there before. My mechanic is as good at TIG/MIG welding as I've seen and he's done a very good job on this for me. Expensive mind you, but I can't complain about the quality of his work at all.

SO throw out the radio...find a good city street or narrow country road with good echoing properties...and give it a squuirt.

[DRP535]

More photos now it's finished

[Mr. E28]

Your car is going to be deafening, but sound oh so sexy!

[DRP535]

Actually no. In fact it is very slightly quieter than before which is the stock sound. This is what I wanted. I like performance for sure, but I like stealth performance rather than overt. The reason for that is I think that I had a very slight exhaust leak at the back of cylinder 6 noticeable when the old gasket was removed. There was some burning marks around the metal seal. Obviously wih all new gaskets now that isn't happening anymore.

For anyone else with a RHD model considering this upgrade I say do it and do it now! I simply cannot big up the improvement enough. This mod has been the single most dramatic improvement to the car's character and driveablity ever. I can't believe the difference it's made. Just as a summary of the differences it's...

- quieter (slightly)
- smoother (the engine spins like a sewing machine now right up to red line with no harshness anywhere at all)
- more eager to rev
- produces more power
- doesn't produce anymore torque that I can feel but importantly it certainly doesn't seem to produce any less either
- easier to start
- settles to a turbine smooth idle immediately after start even when stone cold
- runs slightly cooler (needle sits at about 1/3 way up temp gauge instead of 2/5 before)
- looks way better in the engine bay
- burns at least 15% less fuel than before. Consumption used to be in the order of ~13-13.5 l/100km, now I really have to thrash the ballbag off it to get it above 11 l/100km.
- is much smoother and easier to drive. Transitions on/off throttle are practically unnoticeable. There's no driveline snatching or shunting even when letting it run right down to idle on overrun with the clutch engaged.

The only downsides I have noticed so far are are the cost of buying them and having them fitted (which was quite a lot) and that the engine takes maybe a couple of minutes longer than before to get to normal operating temperature, but I really don't think I'm going to find that too hard to get used to.

I'm not connected with the vendor in any way other than being a customer and I know this reads like advertorial, but seriously, this exhaust has improved the car so far beyond my expectations I can't believe it. I had no idea at all that a BMW big six could ever run this smooth before. If I didn't know any better I'd think my mechanic had removed my old engine and tossed it in a bin replacing it with the brand new V12 out of an Aston Martin Vanquish. The change is seriously that good.

The amazing thing is that if you're willing to suffer extra noise, you can get even greater gains by fitting the full free-flow system all the way back instead of coupling it into the standard mufflers as on my car. It's hard to believe that it could get any better than what my car is right now but extra noise is one compromise I'm not willing to make.

[BDK]

looks good guy,

I like the guys at Fritz'Bits...

good bunch of guys there...

I am glad I finally got to see their 6 branch manifolds that they are always talking about....

congrats

[Disco]

Great bit of info was waiting to hear the results of this fittment as i have been talking with Andrew and i think i will head the same way.......
If it transforms it as much as you say i cant wait now to get this done...just as anxious as i am to complete my dropped suspension completion.....adj konis on lowered eibachs, sway bars, strut braces f/r, i also dont want to pull a fast 1/4 mile but like it to turn hard when i want [/img]

[coopa.s]

Sorry for reviving an old thread, however I'm going down this route soon too. I have a spare eurospec engine which I'm installing in the near future- and the question is, is it possible to have the headers fitted with the engine out of the car, and then install the engine? Or will I have to install the headers when the engine is in the car? As the steering box looks like it could get in the way.......

[DRP535]

Sorry for reviving an old thread, however I'm going down this route soon too. I have a spare eurospec engine which I'm installing in the near future- and the question is, is it possible to have the headers fitted with the engine out of the car, and then install the engine? Or will I have to install the headers when the engine is in the car? As the steering box looks like it could get in the way.......

I suppose anything's possible, but I don't think they were designed to be fitted before the engine is in the car. That's certainly not how the installation instructions read at any rate. I think you're right in that the steering components will cause you major dramas getting in the way if you try to drop the engine in with pipes attached. You do have to lift and tilt the engine slightly off the driver's side engine mount to get the #1 cylinder pipe on anyway, but the back five you feed up from underneath. In my car the pipes run within about 5mm of the steering box in places, so there really isn't a lot of room to be manoevering an engine about on chains.

[coopa.s]

Hmm.. ok then thanks Dean!

[sommy]

Looks great!! What kind of red bushings are those. I'm looking for some new ones.

[DRP535]

Looks great!! What kind of red bushings are those. I'm looking for some new ones.

Red things visible on the car are:
Rear toe-links (dog-bones) - standard BMW issue part. Nothing special here. Dunno why they're red. Probably non-genuine but not urethane.
Front radius arm bushes - Urethane bushes required to stop steering shimmy.
Steering centre track rod - standard genuine BMW issue part. Has not been painted. It came this way from BMW.
Rear shock absorbers - Koni standard adjustable. Not externally adjustable unfortunately. Wish they were. Have to be removed from car and adjusted in a vice.

[Brent in NZ Hartge 535i]

i dropped a M88 engine in my M535i with headers attached , just dropped the subframe down first then , lowerd engine in then raise the subframe back up , not to bad a job to do .
or you could sit engine on the beam and raise it up like they do in the factory.
ps. what did the rhd headers cost ?

Sorry for reviving an old thread, however I'm going down this route soon too. I have a spare eurospec engine which I'm installing in the near future- and the question is, is it possible to have the headers fitted with the engine out of the car, and then install the engine? Or will I have to install the headers when the engine is in the car? As the steering box looks like it could get in the way.......

I suppose anything's possible, but I don't think they were designed to be fitted before the engine is in the car. That's certainly not how the installation instructions read at any rate. I think you're right in that the steering components will cause you major dramas getting in the way if you try to drop the engine in with pipes attached. You do have to lift and tilt the engine slightly off the driver's side engine mount to get the #1 cylinder pipe on anyway, but the back five you feed up from underneath. In my car the pipes run within about 5mm of the steering box in places, so there really isn't a lot of room to be manoevering an engine about on chains.

[DRP535]

i dropped a M88 engine in my M535i with headers attached , just dropped the subframe down first then , lowerd engine in then raise the subframe back up , not to bad a job to do.

Yeah but dude, the M88 headers from your RHD Seth Efrikan 745i hug the block real close. They are nothing like the RHD Fritz headers.

what did the rhd headers cost ?

About $1,000 to buy them (headers + downpipes (secondaries) only, then about another $1,000 to have them installed. That was cheap though. I had family travelling to the UK and they brought them back for me as luggage on the plane so no packing, postage, GST or import duty charges at all. If I had to pay all that rubbish, then they would have been far too expensive.

[Preacher's 5]

Here are some shots of my RHD exhaust headers being fitted to my car. They were taken to illustrate a small problem with the fitting which I want to make the vendor aware of. As can be seen there isn't a lot of room down there for a decent exhaust on a RHD. There's going to be a S/S fabricated heat shield on top of the steering box housing as well which isn't there yet. The hot side hose of the A/C has been rotated around a bit to get it as far away from the No. 1 primary as possible and will be insulated with some of that alfoil reflective wrap as well. The cold end of the power steering pump (the bit that is constantly fed with oil from the power steering compressor) will remain unprotected simply because there's nowhere a heat shield can be mounted between the pipes and the housing.



Even the gap between the worm wheel housing of the steering box and the pipes is so small that there might be slight bending of the shield required to provide an extra 2-3mm of clearance to allow the engine to twist under torque on the mounts without hitting it. It is super-tight down there on a RHD.

Where can I pick up a set of these headers for 2.7L (528e)?

[wkohler]

Well, I'm pretty sure you don't want those - they're for RHD, designed to clear the steering assembly.

Ireland Engineering has a set of M20 headers. I don't know how good they are, as I've heard mixed reviews. Not sure if there's a long-tube one, though.

[robertodonnell]

I just latched on to this thread. I am in Australia too, (Newcastle) and am keen on a set of these for my S38 swapped M535i.

Can I ask, 15 years on, is the car still with you and if so, how are the headers performing? Prices are through the roof now, but I can't see any option to these other than a custom job.

Cheers,

Rob.