Removing heater boxes from SSI

[ARCSinAK]

Anyone have experience with this task. The Stainless is a challenge to cut. Which tool would be best? Grinder with a cutting wheel? If anyone has a link to a thread on this subject it would be great.

Regards-
JS

[turbo nut]

Plasma cutter.

[poorsha]

Why not sell the SSIs and buy headers?

[saxen]

^^^ agree- cutting those off would mostly likely damage them- not to mention they will be worth next to nothing at the end

[onboost]

Originally Posted by poorsha

Why not sell the SSIs and buy headers?

I think the comment above says it best..

[timmy2]

Originally Posted by poorsha

Why not sell the SSIs and buy headers?

Agreed, sell the SSI's and buy headers for 1/2 the price...

Or, after reading your overheating thread... Clean your engine, set the mixture richer so it runs cooler, and install a front fender oil cooler.

You're going to end up there anyways.

[kidrock]

I agree, the SSI's are very valuable and many people would be willing to take them off your hands for a premium price....enough to pay for a set of headers, most likely.

But if you absolutely must cut them, it can be done *carefully" with a cutting wheel and a steady hand. I saw a very recent thread from a Pelican who did this successfully, and it came out great. Do a thread search, it came up within the last month or 2.

[sobamaflyer]

I'll happily send you my stainless headers for your ssis and save you the trouble :-)

Travis, sent from my Galaxy S3

[Chuck.H]

Just to add a different comment, perhaps the headers are old and the heater boxes are cracked? This is the condition my now removed B&B headers are in; if I ever build a track car I'll probably cut the heater boxes off and weld traditional Porsche style flanges on them.

On a related note, how long should I expect these SSI's to last? My B&B's cracked in about 150k miles, I have about 100k on the SSI's and they still look new.

Chuck.H
'89 TurboLookTarga, 360k miles

[kidrock]

Yikes, I need to edit...that thread was not SSI's, they were actually the original heat exchangers.

[will hung]

Just to add another point. Nobody knows what kind of quality Dansk is going to be able to churn out now that they own the rights to SSI's. Most likely nowhere near as good as the originals. I can only see original SSI's going up in value over time.

If you are doing this to prevent over heating, I recommend fixing the real problem instead of cutting up the SSI's. Before buying my SSI's, I thought really hard about deleting my heat, but even in the summer, it's nice to be able to demist your windshield in the mornings and evenings.

[ARCSinAK]

There might be a bit of confusion here, I have SSI on my 80 SC and there are block off plates with no hoses going to the SSI. After a top end re-build I have been seeing higher oil temps. I was thinking about converting the SSI to headers. My 74 has standard steel old style heat exchangers with hoses original hoses attached. I read in one of the posts above and thought the same that running SSI without hoses blowing air through cases too much heat build up, I have never needed heat in the last 5 years so I was contemplating cutting the boxes off both to eliminate this part of the equation. I understand the value of SSI boxes but the shipping costs to Hawaii negate a lot of the potential benefits from switching/trading to headers or selling ect. Maybe I should just get the 74 style heater ducts and run hoses to my SSI boxes.