Top Speed EL Header Review, Install, and Pictures

[tomaszjanczak]

I thought I would share my experiences with this equal-length header made by Top Speed that I bought on eBay. Here is the link to it: http://r.ebay.com/rkBtQ9

I thought I would take the chance on this header since the price is and was $370, eBay gave me a $20 off coupon for anything in the motors category, plus Top Speed refunds $35 if you take a video of the sound (which I have NOT yet done but will be done soon). So it comes out to $315 after all is said and done. Since I read a few positive reviews of their cat-backs, I thought I would take the chance.

Shipping was quick - no complaints there.
Packaging wasn't amazing, but good enough.
Included were the necessary gaskets and new nuts & bolts for the over pipe connection. I threw away the gaskets that came with it and got OEM Subaru gaskets from the dealer. The included ones looked and felt really cheap to me.

I really am not an expert at weld quality but it looked pretty good to me overall except when you look at the collector part from the backside, it looks super ugly.

To the best of my ability, I would say the flanges are completely flat.

The runners are not all 100% equal. Can't remember the exact measurements but they varied by about 4 inches I think.

Weight is 11.7 pounds.

Overall, it looked to be pretty well made, especially considering the price.

INSTALL

I had no problems removing the bolts from the stock header and over pipe after spraying them with PB blaster.
On the Top Speed header, most of the bolts are easily accessible with just an extension on the socket but for one of them you will need to use a regular wrench and for one, a crow's foot wrench is absolutely needed.

All was fine up to this point, where it came to connect the O2 sensors. One of them reached just fine and the other wire couldn't reach the connection so what I did was just unbolt the bracket that holds the 2 connectors and let it just hang there loosely since it's also held on by tape further up so I don't see a problem with that, but it is an issue to be aware of.

Next problem was the under panel. The header comes down too low to fit the under panel normally and I don't really want to be driving without it so I took my favorite tool, the hammer, and went to work deforming the heck out of it. As I bent it one way, the other parts went the opposite direction so in the end, it cleared the header, but I wasn't able to screw in all the screws into the panel (it was just bent too much to reach the thread). I was left with about 6 screws but at least I got the major ones on the perimeter.

So I start the car, let it idle while I open up the hood to hear for any sounds, etc. I kept hearing this random sound like metal cracking, I can't describe it well. It was really random and sometimes it happened for 10 seconds at a time then 15 seconds nothing, and then it would happen for a split second, and was random like that until I just shut off the car.

So this morning I took it for a test drive and noticed some metal on metal vibration when I take off from a stop at low RPM, which might be the under panel slightly touching the header because I didn't bend it enough, but I don't know for sure. Some other weird noise I hear is like a rush of air when pressing the throttle pedal far to accelerate fast. Accelerating slowly, I can't hear it. I thought it might be a exhaust leak, but read that others hear the same sound on the Borla headers and it's not an exhaust leak. So it might just be some more noise than normal because of the thin walls. I still heard the metal cracking sound a few times when idling, couldn't tell while driving because it's too loud to hear anyway.

My other exhaust mod is an Invidia N1 cat-back. Volume increased considerably. Drone while accelerating increased minimally (3000+ RPM). Drone when decelerating (foot off throttle pedal, between 2700-3300 RPM) increased minimally or stayed the same, tough to say. That drone while decelerating is super loud, with or without the header. I've heard that some headers decrease the drone but this is not the case with this header. Maybe with UEL it decreases the drone?

Most noticeable difference in tone is 4000+ RPM when it sounds absolutely EPIC in my opinion. Below that, the tone is pretty much the same as the stock header only louder.

POWER/TORQUE DIFFERENCE - I don't plan on putting my car on a dyno any time soon so I don't have anything to back up my claims. I'm using Vishnu Tuning's OpenFlash Tablet, running Stage 2 EL 91 octane tune & using BP 93 octane fuel. Below 4,000 RPM I would say torque might be slightly less than it was with the stock header. Maybe I'm crazy, but it definitely feels less powerful under 4000 RPM now. HOWEVER, ABOVE 4000 RPM, WOW - I was actually scared when I first went WOT! I seriously was not expecting that much power to come on. It seriously feels like a turbo engine now with lag up to 4000 RPM haha. I have no idea how much horsepower this thing added, but it is absolutely more than noticeable, I was SHOCKED. I know Vishnu Tuning have stated UEL, meaning their OpenFlash header makes more power than the best EL, so that is serious power. I was thinking of the OFH but I am not the biggest fan of the subaru rumble. I don't hate it and think it sounds great on the WRXs but on the BRZ I prefer EL sound.

In conclusion, you have to think if those 2 issues I mentioned before with the O2 sensors not reaching correctly and the under panel issue, are big issues to you. If not, then I would say this header is an awesome deal.

However, I think if I were to do it again I would get something more expensive to avoid those issues and probably UEL for performance reasons.

I will see how this header holds up over the next few months. I might get the OpenFlash header sometime in the future.

Packaging


Inner diameter of runners (they were all very close to this number)


Inner diameter of pipe connecting to over pipe






















I thought this clearance between the pipes was going to be an issue because I couldn't even fit a piece of paper in between them but when everything was bolted up, they were a bit more separated.