Bursch 8V Header Install Issues

[TallaiMan]

The beater had a horribly welded up cat and exhaust manifold on it when I bought the car. It looked like a crackhead engineered the whole thing. The catback is stock, as far as I can tell.

I got a decent deal on a Bursch header and cat delete pipe. So, I spend two and a half hours (not counting soaking things in PB Blaster) underneath the car installing this setup. I only had jackstands to get the car up in the air, since the lift is being used up by my Audi. The install was pretty straightforward, and the hardest part was removing the stock stuff. Now, as I put the Bursch parts on, I realized that there wasn't much clearance in some places. This is where I got stupid. I bolted everything up anyway, and set the car down.

- There is definitely contact with the header/cat pipe at two or more points on the car. One produces an annoying rattle, while the other one makes a deep rubbing/vibrating sound.

- My idle was intermittent. It would jump around when the car was warm, causing more annoying rattling. So, I went to my friend's shop and snagged a Bosch universal replacement O2 sensor. However, by the time I started up the car after that, it idled just fine, and still does so.

Anyone have any experience with either of these issues?

Thanks in advance, you guys have been a bunch of help.

[fast924S]

Yea I have the bursch header and cat sub pipe, And the fit inst that great, I had to do some SLIGHT mods to make it not rub ( notch a body bracket) But I didnt have any issues with idle. Also I think it performed well too. Thing is most NEW exhaust things on OLD cars never really fit just right, Sometime you gotta play with it

[TallaiMan]

Yeah, I put the car on the lift today, and took the bracket off that holds on the heat shield. I notched it using a torch, and there is no more rubbing. There is a slight rattle coming from the muffler now, and it's starting to get annoying. Time to weld up an exhaust, eh?

As for the idle, I think I just got something on the oxygen sensor that it didn't like, or it didn't like the smoke from the coating on the header. Whatever it made it unhappy must have burned off, because it idles like a charm now.

[fast924S]

Yea sounds like its time fore a new exhaust. I havent had any other problems after installing, I did notice about 30,000 miles after I put it on one day I started to get a rattle only on downshifts when the RPM would decel threw 3,000rpm, Im not sure if it was the exhaust or something else loose because I pulled the motor for a rebuild before I got a chance to look around