i havent done a header install, but i will once i come home from deployment, this is just a suggestion but Im gonna go to a shop and have them just loosen up the bolts to the manifolds and have them re-tighten them, then go home/or on post to buy some lift time and do the install myself.

 

Everyone needs to stop complaining about header installs.
Pay the price to have a shop do it or do it yourself.
Stop complaining this is a maxima not a civic.

 

Might as well let them finish the instal at that point. lmao. The hard part is removing everything else just to get to the manifold bolts.

 

Yeah, really. Once you get there, you're into the easy stuff that takes no time at all.

 

Hell yeah that's where the labor is the removal and a 1/4 the install..

 

Yep... once that rear heat shield and manifold comes off, you'll be done within the hour.

 

THIS

Steps to removing rear heat shield:

1) Find huge tree branch cutters or something similar
2) Grab heat shield
3) Twist all out of shape
4) Remove

I spent nearly an hour trying to pick my brain for a way to get it out. Grabbed the tree branch trimmers, had it out in ten minutes.

 

WHat took us a long time was waiting for the bolts to soak with pb blaster. That's why i suggest soaking them 2 days before and the night before and the day of.

 

9 hour estimate is pretty on point. That's exactly what the mechanic I went to told me when he was installing my OBX headers. He was straight up and said the job itself could definitely be done in a shorter span of time but given my location (Northeast) there was a high chance that I'd have rusted bolts which would make the job much more time consuming.

 

OBX are a little more tricky depending on which ones you get. The rear header on the v2 headers is connected to the y pipe permanently, where as on the Cattman headers, the rear header is flanged and removable.