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After too much time spent shopping I ordered these ceramic coated headers a month ago ago and received them last week. The vendor was great to work with. I don't want to provide their name in case I am being unreasonable and this post could be interpreted as negative feedback on them.
See the image below. Weld spatter is typical on all joints. My concerns are that the powder coat will deteriorate where the weld spatter is and that this weld appears incomplete.
1) Kind of spendy at $900 but I decided you get what you pay for and took the plunge.
2) I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WELDING but I certainly can appreciate a nice weld when I see it.
3) Am I unreasonably expecting perfection? - making a mountain out of a mole hill and finding fault in a perfectly good finish? For $900 is this A-OK?
dude that's a CRAP mig job...for a grand you should get better, way better than that, they should be 100% TIG'd.
look at the bottom, the weld has been ground down, revealing the porous centers from improper technique and settings, the overlap welds in the center of the primaries were welded on one side, not in the middle.
i'll back up my claims with my own work, that is a 3/8 allen-head bolt for centering leaf springs, hand-tig'd by me... im not a welder by trade, but im decent with one... the work of those headers are CRAP, pure and simple
The welds are okay for assembly line, not too bird **** looking but yeah, like naramlee shows you can get nicer cheaper,
Ripoff?
I am not sure i would go that far but yeah for that $$$ i would have expected a hair nicer....
I suppose I could have been lucky - or my set were made on a Wednesday because the welds, fit and finish were, in my opinion, first class. Yes, I DID think that (with the coating) they were a bit pricy, but honestly there are not very many true Tri-Y headers out there for our C-3s - and I really wanted to include some of the engineering ideas that Zora had put forth nearly a generation before my 1977 was manufactured.
I emailed the vendor with these pics stating I wanted a redo or a refund. They responded back within a few hours offering to work it out with a phone call.
Long story short, they were training some new welders and agreed that the appearance of the welds were not top notch. The lead person offered a full refund or he could make me a new set himself. We discussed if the weld was effective but just not pretty. It should be OK so I'm keeping these and putting them on.
The offer to immediately refund/replace is all I needed to hear to be satisfied. I can live with the meh finish if they are fully functional and I know the vendor will stand behind them.
Made in America warts and all will always be my preference over anything from The PRC. Argue amongst yourselves!
The header boss is training a new welder and either didnt inspect the welds or let it go out not caring or hoping the customer would let the job slide,
You did, and as long as you are happy that is all that matters,
I am too OCD
But im far from dissing him at least when called out hes a man about it and tried to please you,
last big thing i bought the seller cussed and called me names for pointing out is wasnt as described.
hey good deal on that, pretty big of him to admit (in a round-about-way) that he didn't do his job and was willing to make it right, good luck getting that from the PRC lol
06-10-2018, 10:05 PM
New Headers - Opinions Solicited
warts and all will always be my preference over anything from The PRC. Argue amongst yourselves!