RoadsterSport MAX Power XL 2.0" NC Stainless Steel Header - Ceramic Coated

DESCRIPTION

Our famous RoadsterSport MAX Power Header, now with MONSTER 2 inch primaries, AND BRIGHT SILVER ceramic coating!

Beautifully TIG welded, polished stainless steel finish. Comes with a fresh donut gasket for the connection to the midpipe included. Compatible with our standard engine mounts and also our engine drop brackets that lower the motor a half inch.

This is for folks seeking over 250 horsepower at the wheels, either by supercharger or very high compression naturally aspirated built motor. Not a new concept - 10 years ago when we built the NC Light, that car made made the most power (270whp naturally aspirated) on 2 inch primaries. But for many years nobody else was building motors that extreme. Finally now we've reached a point where there are enough folks out there who are building cars that can use it that it makes sense for us to offer this as a regular production part.

Look at those smooth curves! Notice you don't see 6 welded sections for each primary like so many lesser headers that are made from cut pieces of standard radius pipe and straights. Instead, where possible ultra SMOOTH all mandrel bent tube is used here to keep flow as clean as possible. Sexy all T304 polished stainless steel is formed into massive 2 inch primaries for max power.

We put incredible effort into making the exit at the collector as smooth and perfect as we can get it because this collection point is the KEY to good header flow and we had to make sure this was done as perfect as possible. Note we use the factory collector gasket....so our fit is as factory-like as possible.

Our collector outlet is 2.5 inches. For best high rpm performance customers should match our header with our midpipe and exhaust so they are running 2.5 inches of flow all the way... but our header will bolt in place of the factory header and connect perfectly to the factory midpipe.

GASKETS:

Header comes with new "donut" gasket for the header to midpipe connection. Does NOT come with a gasket for header to engine connection - you reuse your factory gasket there - that gasket is a metal gasket usually good for the lifetime of the car unless you damage yours.

OXYGEN SENSORS:

Several options on what to do with the O2 sensors with our header. Read below for options A, B and C. Optional oxygen sensor wire extension cables are available as an add-on option with this header. Adding ONE wire extension gets you one long wire extension to move the secondary oxygen sensor to the midpipe as described in option B below. Adding TWO wire extensions gets you one long and one short wire extension for moving both primary and secondary oxygen sensors down to the midpipe as described in option A below.

A) Buy our midpipe and our two wiring extensions available here for simple plug and play install. Our midpipes are designed to take both O2 sensors, and includes two O2 sensor connections for that - one before the midpipe's converter and one after the midpipe's converter to help avoid a code. Buy BOTH of our extensions for that option.

B) Second choice and most common choice is first sensor in the header and second sensor in our midpipe after the converter, which will also avoid a code. For install in the midpipe of both sensors you need both O2 extension cords, but if you put the first sensor in the header you only need an extension for the second sensor. The first sensor will reach header connection but you may have to follow the wires back to the harness and use a razor blade to clear some sheath which has them gathered shorter than they actually are.

C) Third choice is to put BOTH sensors in the header, which will cause a code unless your tuner turns off the code caused by having the second sensor in the header. You don't need any wiring extensions for that option (sensors will reach header connection but you may have to follow their wires back to the harness and use a razor blade to clear some sheath which has them gathered shorter than they actually are).

OXYGEN SENSOR BUNGS:

There are TWO oxygen sensor bungs provided by the outlet flange on this header. The header ships with plugs loosely pre-installed in both bungs. Remove a plug to install an o2 sensor where you need it according to the sensor configuration you're running on your particular car (various options A/B/C described above), and where you are not installing a sensor be sure to TIGHTEN the plug there before install.

NOTES ON CERAMIC COATING. Frankly, it is usually only the mild steel headers that are ceramic coated and I had always suspected that the main reason was to slow down the inevitable rust that a mild steel header will suffer over time. Since this header is already made in ALL STAINLESS STEEL, it does not need ceramic coating for rust prevention. That left the pure question of whether or not we could really find additional torque with the ceramic coating to justify the costs. After lots of testing the answer turned out to be YES, our BRIGHT ceramic coating was consistently ~3% stronger across all points on the curve.

CARB NOTICE: Installing this header in the 2006 through 2015 MX5 Miata means removing the first catalytic converter which means this header will NEVER be a California street legal header, never be CARB approved (and therefore legal in California for off road use only). Note that there are states in addition to California that now follow the California model and require CARB compliance, please check the rules of your state before ordering, in some states this setup is legal only for race cars and may never be used on public highway. Sorry, we will not ship these to residents of California.

The first converter is also a pretty good resonator so understand that installation of any header will raise the exhaust sound level a good 20%. Therefore, we strongly recommend the RoadsterSport Q muffler with any header change because it was designed to handle the sound level of the header, and our RoadsterSport Helmholtz midpipe tunes the final sound result for drone free fun.

FITMENT NOTES:
YES this header fits with the automatic transmission with a bit of grinding. There is a minor clearance issue between the edge of the header's bottom flange and the auto transmission. Some grinding needs to be done to knock the corner of the flange down a hair and then everything will fit.

LEFT HAND DRIVE ONLY. This big header is intended for USA/Canada version cars that are left hand drive. Does not fit on RHD cars which have less clearance due to the steering rack being on the exhaust side. For RHD cars, look to our header with 1.6" primaries that does clear the RHD steering rack.

INSTRUCTIONS: Read full installation hints and notes in our forum Installation Instruction Section! ---

BRIAN'S COMMENTS. Over a decade ago we built the first FAST 2.5 liter NC, added carbon fiber doors and carbon front end and called it "NC LIGHT." It won events and set track records. That car used a custom built 2.5 liter high compression motor with Cosworth Roller Throttle Body and made 270hp at the wheels on a DynoJet using a 2 inch primary shorty header. Since that time some customers have asked us to do a 2 inch but 99 percent of customer 2.5 liter builds just didn't need a two inch primary shorty header. Finally we have enough customers with serious 2.5 builds that merit going this big. If your build will legitimately do over 250hp at the wheels on a dynojet (normally aspirated or supercharged), then it is worth considering this two inch beast.