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Around 60,000 miles, I could clearly hear a distinctive "hissing" from the exhaust system.  Closer examination revealed a couple of large cracks in the stock exhaust manifold.  I understand that this is a common occurrence for this part.  I decided to go with the Borla stainless header because of their "million-mile" warranty.  Although I'm sure that I prolly voided my warranty as a result of a little modification I did to it!  :o)   . . . read on.

As you know, the stock TJ exhaust system exits the exhaust manifold and makes a sharp turn towards the front of the Jeep, wraps around the oil pan, then heads straight back on the passenger side to the catalytic converter.  This is a well-engineered system, with all components nicely tucked way up out of harms way.  The Borla engineers, on the other hand, are obviously not trail Jeep owners, cuz their TJ header design sucks!  The exhaust exits the header and crosses underneath the tranny before connecting to the cat.  The problem was that my oil pan skid plate wouldn't fit with the Borla cross-under pipe.   I certainly didn't do my homework before purchasing this header, otherwise I would have chosen a different brand.  Oh well, so I went to my local Midas shop and had them custom bend me a cross-under pipe that sat up about an inch higher than the pipe Borla provided.  But I still had to somewhat flatten the bottom of the custom pipe with a sledge hammer in order to get my skid plate to fit without putting a lot of upward pressure on the exhaust system.  A few months later, I started having shifting problems (not related in any way to the exhaust system), and thought that I might need to replace my clutch.  However, I wouldn't be able to remove the clutch without cutting out my new cross-under pipe.  So I decided to "fix" the poor design of my Borla header.

First, I cut out the cross-under pipe at the header and at the cat with my cutting torch, then I removed the  intake manifold and header.  Next, I cut the 90-degree rearward-facing elbow off of the bottom of the header with my chop saw.  Then I turned the 90-degree elbow around so that it faced forward, and re-welded it to the header!  Went back to the Midas shop, where they created a stock-shaped pipe from the header, around the front of the oil pan, and back to the cat.   It worked perfectly!  BTW, if you ever remove your intake & exhaust manifolds for any reason, don't forget to install a new gasket!!  I didn't; and it leaked!!  That meant I had to remove them again and install a new gasket.  It certainly wasn't worth the additional effort, having originally tried to save $15 by reusing the old gasket!!  

For more information on Borla stainless exhaust headers and other related products, visit their web site at www.borla.com

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