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How To Install 94/95 Longtubes On Your 94/95 SN95

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So you want to install longtubes in your 94-95 Mustang?  Well, here's how you should go about doing it.

 

For starters, there is something you must understand and accept before you get started: and that is....all the other instructions are wrong.  You will read some forums/threads/whatever that will tell you that the driver's side is cake, 5 min max...and that the passenger side will take you hours upon hours.  This is bullshit.  Maybe this is true on a Fox.  On a 95/95 SN95, it's just not true.  The driver side is far, far worse.  The passenger side is cake.  Don't believe me?  Read on.

 

I installed BBK long tubes - if you have another brand your fitment may be different.  Also, I did this in my garage using jack stands, Race Ramps, and jacks.  I do not have access to a lift.

 

 

Before Starting

 

Before getting started, I recommend the following:

  • Heat shield boots for your spark plug wires (I used this)
  • Heat shield wrap for your starter (I used this)
  • Velcro heat shield to protect a couple things, 3 feet (I used this)

 

You should also pick up new header bolts.  I used ARP stainless steel ones.

 

A couple days before starting: spray the header bolts at the head and down where the headers connect to the midpipe with Aero Kroil.  Aero Kroil is penetrating oil on steroids - it's better then PB Blaster, Gibbs, whatever you use.  Trust me.  Aero Kroil is the Good Stuff.  Spray all the bolts a couple times each day and let the oil do its thing.  Also, don't forget to spray the EGR tube (connects the EGR to the passenger side header) if you have an EGR.

 

Disassembly

 

  1. Remove your strut tower brace, if you have one.
  2. Remove your intake.  In my case, I have a CAI, so I just removed the whole thing.
  3. I don't have smog stuff on my car.  If you do, you should also remove the thermactor solenoids and stuff.
  4. Also remove your throttle body.  Trust me.  It's worth it.  It's four bolts, a spring, a cable (or two if you have cruise), and unclip the TPS and IAC.
  5. Put the car on jack stands, or a lift if you are lucky.  Get the car as high as possible, you will need the ground clearance for the driver side longtube.  I had the back wheels of the car on some race ramps, and then I jacked the front of the car up super high and used jack stands under the subframe connectors near the front of the car.  You may need a step stool or something to access the engine bay.  Or, break all the bolts loose while the car is on the ground, then remove them once you jack it up.  What ever is easiest for you.
  6. You will need to remove the midpipe.  Mine was aftermarket, so it just unbolted.  You may need to cut the pipes if they are stock.
  7. Remove the O2 sensor in each of the headers.
  8. Remove the spark plug wires and spark plugs
  9. Drain your power steering pump.  Yes.  I know.  The problem is (at least for me), the return line that goes in to the back of the power steering pump is literally right on top of the front-most driver side header bolt.  You maaaay be able to get the bolt out.  But installing the new one, ugh.  Nightmare.  Just do it now, get it out of the way.  In my case, the hose was a heat cycle or two away from rupturing anyway due to how close it is to the header.  I disconnect the return hose down by the cooler (just follow it down from the back of the pump to see which it is).  I had to cut it.  If you want a replacement hose, Auto Zone (or whatever) sells the hose.  It's called the Power Steering Return Hose or something like that, it's the low pressure return hose.  It's supposed to be 31" - just get 4 feet and cut to length.
  10. Remove the header bolts
  11. If you still have an EGR, you will need to disconnect it.  Start at the EGR side, use a large wrench that fits snuggly, and loosen the bolt.
  12. Also remove the EGR - it will make installing it later easier.
  13. Remove the dipstick from the driver side.  Once the bolt attaching it to the header is undone, it just pulls out (it installs in the block via a hole and RTV - what actually holds it in place is the bolt at the header).
  14. Remove the headers
  15. Remove the starter.  Completely.  Get it out of there.  I used a box on the floor, removed the started from the bellhousing, and placed in on the box so it wouldn't pull on the wires.
  16. Disconnect the steering shaft at the rack.  This may not be necessary for you if you have a stock shaft.  I have a Maximum Motorsports solid steering shaft, and there is not enough room (maybe if I had a lift I would have enough room to wiggle things in).  Anyway, if you have a MM solid shaft as well, remove the pinch bolt at the steering rack, and slide the MM coupler completely off the rack and let it dangle.  It installs only one way on the rack, so don't worry about loosing the position of your steering wheel.
  17. Either reinstall your power steering return hose, or if you got new hose, fit that up.  Make sure you use some velcro heat shield on the hose - you don't need a lot, just cut enough to keep the header heat off.  You will easily be able to eyeball the amount you need.
  18. When you are ready, don't forget to refill your power steering fluid.

 

This is the bastard: the front-most bolt behind the power steering pump.  The blue rag is where the return hose attaches:

 

IMG_6691.jpg

 

 

Prop the starter up on something so it can stay completely out of the way without stressing the wires:

 

IMG_6692.jpg

 

 

Driver Side Install

 

Now you are ready to install the driver side.  As the other guides say, sure, it takes 5 min to put the header in place.  And then a couple hours to actually get it installed (dipstick and all).  So be mentally prepared.  It will not be just 5 min.

 

  1. Slide the driver side in up from the bottom, angling it as best as you can.  If you have a buddy or wife or whatever, have them hold it in place once you get it up through.  The hardware the longtubes came with do NOT have studs.  If you bought a stud kit instead of bolts, then thread in the two studs at each end so your helper can slide the longtube on to those studs to hold it in place.  Slide the header gasket in place, and then use a couple header bolts, finger tight, to hold it in place.
  2. Thread the other bolts in, loosely.  Wiggle the header as you do this.
  3. Re-attach the steering shaft if you removed it.  Make sure it clears the tubes.  In my case, I had about 1/4" of clearance.  Not a lot, but enough.
  4. This part will suck.  Re-install the dipstick tube.  Clean all the old RTV off the bottom of it.  There will be a lip on the bottom - the tube will go into the block up to that lip.  You will need to spend some time test fitting the tube, adjusting it a little fit around the headers.  Have patience, and be careful when bending the tube if you do need to bend a little (I did).  Each time you bend a little, grab the dipstick and slide it through the tube to make sure it still slides in.  The last thing you want to do is install the thing only to find out your dipstick no longer slides in.  Also, the stock arrangement was a threaded header bolt, which the tube flange thing fit on to, with another bolt to hold it place.  This won't work with your new headers.  Instead, plan on placing the tube flange behind your new header bolt, and then screw the header bolt in.  I had to bend the flange thing a little to get it to line up.  Take your time, don't eff up your dipstick tube.  The tube will go around the outside of the header, between the tubes and strut tower, and in between the header and steering shaft.
  5. Start tightening the header bolts.  Start at the center, and move outwards.  Use anti-seize if you have aluminum heads.  Before doing the bolt that will also hold the dipstick tube, apply RTV just below the lip of the tube.  Use a good amount, it will need to seal the tube to the block where it slides in.  Carefully slide the dipstick tube in, being careful not to get RTV all over your new headers and steering shaft.
  6. Make sure all the bolts on the driver side are tight.  I used a bit of paint to mark the bolts to make it easier to see if they back out.  No idea if the paint will stay on once they heat up.  We'll see.

 

Steering shaft clearance (the skinnier black tube is the dipstick tube):

 

IMG_6696.jpg

 

 

Passenger Side Install

 

On to the passenger side.  You have to remove more to get to it, but there's so much more room on this side.

 

  1. If you have A/C, you will want to put heat shield on the line that runs along the bottom of the passenger side strut tower.  Some guides say to move it up a couple inches, however doing that put stress on the metal part that connected at the firewall and I wasn't comfortable with that.  So I cut some of the velcro heat shield, a little longer then the length of the header, and get that installed.
  2. On the passenger side engine mount, remove the single nut on the underside of the mount.  I also loosened the bolts holding the cross member to the transmission mount, just give a little more wiggle room.
  3. Using a jack, and a piece of wood, place it under the oil pan - you will want to use a piece of wood that covers the entire back portion of the pan, to ensure that the pan doesn't get dented in.  Jack up the motor an inch or two.  In my case, the stud from the engine mount just started to clear the slot when I stopped jacking.
  4. Slide in the passenger header, from the top.  The bottom of the header will go in the gap where your starter used to be.  Move the fuel lines out of the way.  The collector side of the header will sort of slide up and inbetween the bellhousing and the body of the car.  Just wiggle things around.  It will fit.  Pretty easily too.
  5. Same as the driver side, use bolts, finger tight, to hold the header in place.  Don't forget the header gasket.
  6. Once the header is in place, lower the engine back down to the mount.  Tighten the nut on the engine mount, tighten the bolts on the transmission cross member if you loosened them.
  7. On the EGR to header tube, make sure the swivel cap ends actually swivel and move around, it will make installing it much easier.  If they don't swivel, then use Aero Kroil to loosen all the rust.  If one or both ends still don't swivel, bang those ends against the ground pretty hard to break the rust loose ;)
  8. Apply anti-seize to the header threads, and connect the tube, using the swivel to make it easier to install.  Don't tighten it all the way down.
  9. Apply anti-seize to the EGR threads, and attach it to the tube.  Move it around until it fits back on the intake neck.  Loosely install the EGR.
  10. Tighten the header bolts, center out.  I used paint to mark them, like the driver side.
  11. Once the header is tight, tighten all the EGR stuff - the swivel nuts on the tube at both ends, and the EGR itself.
    1. Back under the car, reinstall the starter.  If you want, you can wrap it first.  I didn't.  I installed it, and then wrapped it.  I slide the wrap up between the starter and engine block, and then pulled it down to wrap it around.  I also trimmed the heat shield - it would have wrapped around almost twice.  Since the 94/95 starter is smaller then the Fox ones, you might not need a wrap.  Some people have reported the starter working just fine with no wrap.  I decided not to chance it.  I was already there, so why not.
  12. Slide the stainless steel cable tie things up, and pull them down, and use pliers/screwdrivers/etc. to tighten them.

 

The A/C line, wrapped in velcro heat shield:

 

IMG_6689.jpg

 

 

As you can see, not a lot of room between the A/C line and header:

 

IMG_6690.jpg

 

 

The starter wrapped with heat shield:

 

IMG_6694.jpg

 

 

 

The Wrap-Up

 

Button everything else back up.

 

  1. Loosely install the new mid pipe, both at the header collector side, and at the mufflers.  In my case, they didn't line up so great at the collectors, so I used a pry bar and the bots to sort of force it down on the collectors.
  2. I also used a jack to hold the midpipe up.  Jack the midpipe up decently high, make sure you are happy with the ground clearance.  Also make sure the pipes aren't hitting anything on the underside of the car.
  3. Once you are happy with the placement of the midpipe, really crank down on all the bolts.  The midpipe no longer has hangers, so it's the connection between the headers and mufflers that hold it place.  Make everything really tight to prevent the pipe from drooping over time.
  4. Reinstall the spark plugs and spark plug wires
  5. Reinstall the throttle body, smog stuff if you have it, and intake.
  6. Reinstall the strut tower brace if you removed it.
  7. Reinstall the O2 sensors.  You may need to extend the O2 wires as they most likely won't reach.  In my case, I have replaced both O2 sensors with wideband ones, so my connectors are for the wideband O2's and they reach just fine.
  8. Take a once over, make sure you didn't forget anything, and that everything is tight.
  9. Put the car on the ground, fire it up, and enjoy your new sound.
  10. Run it through a couple heat cycles, maybe a short drive, and double check all the header bolts to make sure they haven't backed out.  For the next while, keep an eye on those bolts.  Re-tighten as necessary.

 

 

The O2's:

 

IMG_6698.jpg

 

 

And that's it.  A lot of words, but really not that bad.  See?  Passenger side, no problem.  Driver side?  Super huge pain.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by mcglsr2
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i think it's a little "results may vary".  my passenger side took us about 8 hours and that's on a lift.  the driver's side went on in i think about 2 minutes.  couldn't get smoother.  mine were fox headers though so maybe that's the difference.

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  • Supporting Member

Nice writeup.

 

I have the hooker slip-tube headers designed for a fox.  Driver's side was cake, only 1 of the tubes is separate.  On the passenger side 3 of the tubes are separate from the collector, it's a nightmare to assemble when you can only use 2 hands, 1 foot, and your teeth to hold everything together.

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38 minutes ago, Prokiller said:

i think it's a little "results may vary".  my passenger side took us about 8 hours and that's on a lift.  the driver's side went on in i think about 2 minutes.  couldn't get smoother.  mine were fox headers though so maybe that's the difference.

 

9 minutes ago, seijirou said:

Nice writeup.

 

I have the hooker slip-tube headers designed for a fox.  Driver's side was cake, only 1 of the tubes is separate.  On the passenger side 3 of the tubes are separate from the collector, it's a nightmare to assemble when you can only use 2 hands, 1 foot, and your teeth to hold everything together.

 

Yah, see, that's the thing.  All the things I've read, forum posts, magazine articles, etc. say exactly what you say: driver side cake, passenger side hell.  The only thing I can think of is that in each of those situations, there's a Fox something.  The headers are going in a Fox body, or it's an SN95 but Fox headers, or something is Fox related.  Also, pretty much all of them were doing it on a lift, and not a garage floor in a house.

 

In my case, it's 95/95 headers going in a 94/95 car.  And after removing the things from the passenger side, I kid you not, it went in like butter.  Even easier by myself because I could hold it up and thread bolts in there.  On the driver side, I had to use a jack on the bottom to hold the header in place just so I could wiggle it around and get the bolts threaded in.

 

So I'm sure it's results may vary, especially depending on brand of headers, car, facilities, etc.

 

In my case, for 94/95 headers on a 94/95 car on a garage floor, by myself - the driver side was nuts, probably 5 to 6 hours all said and done.  And that's the other thing - no one talks about the power steering pump return line.  The front bolt, for me, was literally impossible to get to without removing the hose.  Perhaps, in my case, the hose there doesn't run the same way on everyone else's car?  The passenger side, 2.5 hours at the most, and a good portion of that was getting things out of the way and the engine jacked up.

Edited by mcglsr2
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Agreed, application-specific probably has a lot to do with it.  Being one piece also helps I think.  With mine the passenger side is 4 pieces, and you can't put any of the bolts in for any of them until it's all together.  It's a real balancing act.

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so the truth, it seems, is to run a fox driver's side header and a 94/95 passenger side header.  should be able to do a longtube swap then in like 20 minutes!

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3 minutes ago, Prokiller said:

so the truth, it seems, is to run a fox driver's side header and a 94/95 passenger side header.  should be able to do a longtube swap then in like 20 minutes!

 

That's what I got out of it ;)

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Man I really want to do longtubes but this is why I'm procrastinating.... I just don't feel like dealing with it and I don't want to pay someone else to do it. I think I see shorty headers in my future.

 

Thanks for the sick write up though.

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24 minutes ago, busta said:

Man I really want to do longtubes but this is why I'm procrastinating.... I just don't feel like dealing with it and I don't want to pay someone else to do it. I think I see shorty headers in my future.

 

Thanks for the sick write up though.

 

Well, I haven't driven the car yet with them installed.  But I'm willing to bet that once I do I will feel it's worth it.  The biggest issue I personally had was the assumptions I had going in to it, not the work itself.  I was literally expecting the driver side to be cake.  And when it wasn't, well.

 

My suggestion, for what it is worth, if it's something you are really interested in, then get 'er done.  Once I re-calibrated my expectations, it really wasn't that bad.  It's a lot of steps I listed above, sure - but not necessarily a lot of work.  With the right preparation and right frame of mind, you can get it done in two nights, 1 night for each side, or a long, full day if you are so inclined.  That's actually not too bad, assuming you don't need the car in between.

 

With projects like this, I feel the best approach is to just start doing things.  And before you know it...it's done.  Besides, this was not the worst thing I have ever worked on.  Ask me about putting lowering springs on a 2012 Audi A4 some time if you want to hear about a truly terrible task...

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16 hours ago, busta said:

Man I really want to do longtubes but this is why I'm procrastinating.... I just don't feel like dealing with it and I don't want to pay someone else to do it. I think I see shorty headers in my future.

 

Thanks for the sick write up though.

wait till i get my lift then we'll do it over a weekend.

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5 hours ago, Prokiller said:

wait till i get my lift then we'll do it over a weekend.

Drop the k-member and it'll be done in no-time. I should've pulled my Cobra engine this way but 20-20 hindsight doesn't help until it's too late.

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It really is much easier to install BBK headers on a fox.  The driver side dropped in from the top fairly easily after raising that side of the engine.  The passenger slid in from the bottom. 

But it's not going to be that easy on my Cobra.

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