Thanksgiving had nothing to do with it. He had time to answer other posts in the mean time after my questions.

 

Well I'm sorry you feel that way, just trying to help the situation. Again sorry you feel that way....

 

Jft, materials meaning the weakest link in any exhaust system, the tubing. It cracks and depending where that crack happens it could wreak havoc. Earlier this year a pair of Chinese knockoffs cracked at a flange a nearly burned a 2009 Dodge Viper to the ground. The guy actually had an extinguisher. Had to replace his engine harness when it was all said and done. I hope that answers your question.

 

Thank you for the reply. It's a far cry from 'hundreds' as mentioned earlier, but something to consider. Like I said earlier, I don't mind paying for top quality products.

 

Goggle "Chinese Corvette Header Problem", which will bring you results from multiple Corvette and performance car forums, and you will see hundreds of 'quality' complaints.

The primary reasons are inconsistent quality control for fitment, welding and material issues. IMHO Buyers. "You get what you pay for, while picking the pockets of American businessmen."

Something else to keep in mind.... Nick, owner of ARH, probably monitors a hundred car websites since he sells his headers for multiple cars from multiple manufacturers. Be a little patient.

I think it would be interesting to weigh the ARH vs. the Chinese clone because I think you may find the Chinese headers are heavier because they have to have to use thicker flanges to prevent warping, and thicker tubing because of material cracking.

Chinese headers tend to be made in different factories with lesser quality metals from different mills. The production goes to the cheapest bidding contract manufacturer. One person's headers from the same Chinese brand may look a little different from another.

ARH make their headers in the same factory every time with consistently quality materials and workmanship, e.g., superior metals and welds. Buying a Chinese clone for your Corvette is like shopping at Macy's for quality merchandise, and then going to the Dollar Store for upgrades.

Something I've noticed on the forums.... If a cheap Chinese made header has fitment issues, the buyer will often say, "I only had to simply cut or dimple the header pipe to make it fit... no problem." but, they will bash premier manufacturers if they read about any kind of problem. When someone buys a cheap, knock off, Chinese header, they are also much less likely to go publicly post it because they know they will hear "told you so". I'll bet many of those buying the Chinese headers also complain about American manufacturers sending jobs overseas. Ironic.

 

Unfortunately, Chinese "knock-offs" are occurring everywhere and there is little if nothing that can be done. They know small business people don't necessarily have the resources to pursue their illegal activities via a long and costly court battle...and if someone did and they won go try and collect.

There was recently a piece on TV about what is going on in the the art world where Chinese artists are ripping off well known American works of art and these pieces are showing up for sale on eBay at a 10th of the value. It is a billion dollar a year business and for now, no one can do a damn thing about it.

http://paulrichmondstudio.blogspot.c...ootlegged.html

 

Aloha and Knome, Great posts. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Nick

 

It's easily in the hundreds, maybe even thousands when you factor in how many applications these knock offs cover. As mentioned by Aloha, a quick google search would find quite a few horror stories. Far more than you would care to count I'm sure.

Nick

 

Jft69z, what Nick says is completely true. Metallurgy in many foreign countries, China being one of them, is horrible at best. The United States develops the technology allowing these countries to produce dimensionally correct parts but many times they are way off on the metal makeup. Don't fool yourself these countries do have people that are true craftsmen. Embrittlement, uneven discoloration and even rust are common on stainless Chinese headers.

One other thing worth noting the United States can compete on the world market. We are far more advanced in many aspects.

What attracts these companies to certain products is the mismatch between time and materials required to manufacture pieces and the retail price consumers are paying.

 

Thanks nbm... I fully understand the difference between the metallurgy of melted down refrigerators & lawnmowers that are coming out of China vs good quality materials. I was in the Chemical industry for years and our Materials Insp. Dept used to do non-destructive testing & evaluation of everything that came on site. The China stuff usually didn't fare very well, as well as them occasionally finding counterfeit bolts, flanges, etc. Disasterous is what can best be described if these bad materials ended up in the process stream with some of the very nasty chemicals we dealt with.

I also fully understand the welding process as I have & use MIG, TIG & plasma machines here at my shop all the time for steel, aluminium, stainless, etc. What I was asking Nick was more on the lines of were these a materials issue, welding issue, etc. Did he send out any of the offshore parts for materials analysis? Were some of these failures of cracked tubes possibly the result of improper installation? If some butcher installed the headers & then mates them to the downstream pipes that need to be forced into place because of mis-alignment, could that stressed header tube eventually crack due to heat & vibration?

I'm not trying to crucify him for pointing out that these people copied his design, or questioning the quality of his products. It was more an issue of backing up his blanket statements that these things will all have fittment issues down the road, burn harnesses, leak, use poor quality materials and that there are hundreds of forum members here that have problems. I did a quick google search like Aloha mentioned and see some results like 2009, 2011 and some mention a couple of vendors. I didn't dig too far...

It's no secret that the Chinese are very good at taking good quality stuff & reverse engineering it in a pretty quick timeframe. Like I said before, I don't mind paying for top quality stuff & certainly know that what's coming on the boats to the US isn't going to meet that standard. Take a walk thru Walmart, they're the largest importer of China goods by far. Funny how they used to wave the US Flag years ago but that quietly disappeared as the quantity of overseas containers made their way to Walmart loading docks.

Anyhow, it's all good. When I'm in the market to start modifying my car, I'll certainly be looking at the ARH products based on their reputation, quality & US manufacture.

 

Well, I want to see the Big Three lower prices on $1300 friggin mufflers. Come on vendors, lower prices = greater volume. Just my .02

 

[QUOTE=jft69z;1585550952]
I also fully understand the welding process as I have & use MIG, TIG & plasma machines here at my shop all the time for steel, aluminium, stainless, etc. What I was asking Nick was more on the lines of were these a materials issue, welding issue, etc. Did he send out any of the offshore parts for materials analysis? Were some of these failures of cracked tubes possibly the result of improper installation? If some butcher installed the headers & then mates them to the downstream pipes that need to be forced into place because of mis-alignment, could that stressed header tube eventually crack due to heat & vibration?

JFT, We never have to send this tubing for analysis. We test bend them on our benders when they send us samples. We already know what the outcome will be but it's good for a laugh. They usually split on a seam within the radius of the bend. It's just too brittle.

Nick

 

You get what you paid for, you want some cheap a$$ headers on your 100K vette then go for it. But don't complaint after a year or 2 that your system is falling apart. Dont complaint if more and more local shop close down. Don't complaint if aftermarket r&d from various level start to sucks, cuz they dont bother anymore because folks would rather save few bucks on crappy knock off. From back in the Supra's days,some dude started to buy ebay knock off single turbo kit of Boost logic or sound performance. Then the turbo manifold cracked, turbo didnt last 6 months major fitment issues. They ended rebuying everything and ended cost twice of the original amount! i'm not even talking about labor, getting stranded in the middle of nowhere, car caught on fire and etc.. but hey the save 300$!!!!
ARH Kooks PFADT, they all did they r&d are they are implicated in the evolution of our beloved corvette. What the hell is wrong with you people!!!! I thought American was patriotic!!!

If you dont wanna pay full price, do like i did, i bought a pair of used Kooks LT with 1000 miles for less than 1K! Cheaper than a freaking chinese piece of crap knock off!

 

Nick[/QUOTE]
Nick you keep saying somebody is knocking off your headers, what proof do you have? i checked your site and didnt see any, i looked at their pics and yours and they dont look the same, as a mater of fact i no someone who compared a pair of 1 7/8 to kooks and they were very similar, and it had a round raised port for the z vs your d port so they are not knock offs they are very different, I see about 4 other things different then yours, have you actually seen a set or just a picture? because I have seen two sets

 

Got it, Thanks!

 

Judging by your posts, you obviously sound like a big fan of Kooks headers. Kooks makes a great product (Had them on my race car) but have nothing to do with this thread, yet you keep bringing them up. I bet your tune will change 100% if they knocked off a set of Kooks headers, and this was a thread started by Kooks. Every comment you have made on this thread is totally irrelevant to the facts.

The Facts are:
A quality Header that took time and money to design was taken by another company and knocked off. They are using inferior materials to do it, & are paying 1/10th of the cost but charging a premium. They are only slightly cheaper than Kooks or ARH. If you look at the pics of the C6 system its very obvious that the design is the same. All ARH is tying to do is point out to potential customers that they may be purchasing a product that looks the same but does not meet the standard of quality ARH is known for. What do you expect the people at ARH do, just sit back and say oh well. I've owned Kooks and ARH, and nobody beats their quality, that quality takes money, research & knowledge to achieve. I've used stainless plenty of times to know that chinese stainless is JUNK, As a matter of fact so is Chinese aluminum and chrome-moly.
j

 

Nick you keep saying somebody is knocking off your headers, what proof do you have? i checked your site and didnt see any, i looked at their pics and yours and they dont look the same, as a mater of fact i no someone who compared a pair of 1 7/8 to kooks and they were very similar, and it had a round raised port for the z vs your d port so they are not knock offs they are very different, I see about 4 other things different then yours, have you actually seen a set or just a picture? because I have seen two sets[/QUOTE]

Plain and simple Dennis they have been copied just like kooks and so on just buy some quality headers and be done with it.....

 

Plain and simple Dennis they have been copied just like kooks and so on just buy some quality headers and be done with it.....[/QUOTE]

No they haven't been copied, I had 1 3/4 kooks lt and tried Vararam 1 7/8 they mad more rwhp but lost some tq so I had stanger383 try them. he was offered a pair of kooks lt from Rodney at rpm after comparing them on the ground side by side and kept the Vararam headers, Nick hasn't seen the headers other then in a picture he has no idea what grade the stainless steel is or the bends primary length or collector the angles or the bends as he has never seen them, from what i have seen the quality is excellent and their are many differences between american racing and kooks

 

Would someone please PM me the names of the Chinese header vendors. Would like to know what I'm getting for my money.

Thanks

 

Yes there are many differences between ARH & Kooks, because ARH never copied Kooks & Kooks never copied ARH, they are different headers, with different features, drsigned by 2 different companies!!! What does that have to do with Nick calling out a company who copied ARH's header design???
Judging by the pics on both websites(I've never seen the Vararams in person) they are identical. If that picture on the website is not the actual header design that Vararam is using than I am wrong, but why would it not be? In my opinion Vararam loses a little credibility as a company by blatantly copying another manufacturers product like that.