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Home » Products » Under the Bonnet » Exhaust Components » Header

HP Racing/Ebay Mini Cooper 50-H29

Reviews	Views	Date of last review
1	14857	12/29/2004

Recommended By	Average Price	Average Rating
100% of reviewers	None indicated	5.0

Description:	This header is a high polished stainless steel, and of heavy guage. It is not available with a converter and is a race only application. The product looks just like the pictures presented by the manufacturer. The header includes two bungs to accomodate the pre and post Cat configuration. The bungs are capped with bolts. A small flex pipe is also part of the design.
Keywords:	Header no Cat stainless steel
Web site:	http://www.hpracing.com

Author

BluMiniMe
4th Gear

Registered: February 2004
Location: Pendleton, IN
Posts: 320

Review Date: 12/29/2004

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 5

Pros:	Price! ; finish-highly polished stainless steel; solid; free breathing; no Cat.
Cons:	LOUD!! ; no Cat; fit; no gaskets; did I mention LOUD!! (with my Borla Race cat-back).

Outstanding value considering every other header on the market goes for upwards of $700 or more-- even for a Cat-less design. (Soon to be released Pilo Racing header excluded.)

Well, its a header... 4 into 1 design. The primaries are factory size diameter and look to be about twice as long. The collector section is 2.25\"-- mates to my Borla great. The header looks exactly like the pictures and there are no flaws. The welds are good-- all on the exterior. Installation was normal; no problems bolting it in. Two bungs are included in factory locations for the factory O2 sensors.

Would be a 10.... however.... With my Borla Race, this thing is DAMN LOUD! At least 115db inside the car with the windows up and rear seats down. Vibrates the entire car between 3000-5500 rpm... you can hear the interior panels buzzing. The drone is almost painful cruizing at 3000-4000 rpm. From 6k rpm up it really screams. It sounds exactly like a straight pipe exhaust on a large cc race bike. It is indeed a race header-- nothing more and nothing less. Down shifts and coasting in gear sound awesome though... it pops, it spits, it barks, burps and burbbles like a real race machine.

Small issues: (1) The primaries are oval, just like the stock header, but do not mate exactly with the exhaust ports-- as much as 1/4\" off. Some grinding solved that issue by enlarging the ports on the header mount plate. There is a fair bit of room on the mounting plate to enlarge it to the size of the primaries. I did this by laying the gasket over the mount plate and remove all the material inside the gasket port. (2) The flex pipe resides within 1/2\" of the front sway-bar -- engine vibration could cause it to rub... too soon for me to tell. (3) Once mounted, the header is about 3/4\" shorter than stock... I had to readjust my Borla to reach the header... no biggie, as the Borla is a multi piece cat back that provides for this. I doubt the factory exhaust would make it though.

My intention all along has been to splice in a cat. I will reserve final judgement until the cat is installed. Although its insanely loud at the moment, I have hopes the cat will tame it down... hopefully quite a bit. The Borla Race on the factory header sounds just perfect to me. Despite this header\'s outstanding value, its just too loud. My grade \"5\" is reduced 1 point based on the minor fitment issues and 4 points due to its loudness.

P.S. I\'m running a O2 sim to prevent throwing a CEL. I will update or re-review this after the cat install.

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