Cracked header opinions please.

Have a small crack by the O2 sensor i found when I had the belly pan off. I already know my dealer won't warranty this out bc I have resonator delete pipes welded in. What would you all do with this? Is this section cast , can it be welded or not ?

Ty

That portion of the factory tubular exhaust manifolds is cast stainless. The part is defective and not related to the elimination of the resonators which is waaay downstream of anything emissions related.

Bring the car to the dealer as it absolutely should be covered. This is a rare failure and I'm certain Ford would like to take a closer look at how the failure occurred.

Would definitely take it do dealer as Epiphany mentioned and would have zero qualms doing so. Very hard to argue that the delete of essentially a sound item would have any impact on the headers, especially when the very same delete exists for the R version and has no causality relation to a crack in a cast piece (a defect).

In half-seriousness, would the dealer even notice the difference?

Thanks i guess ill give the dealership a chance

Epiphany said:

That portion of the factory tubular exhaust manifolds is cast stainless. The part is defective and not related to the elimination of the resonators which is waaay downstream of anything emissions related.

Bring the car to the dealer as it absolutely should be covered. This is a rare failure and I'm certain Ford would like to take a closer look at how the failure occurred.

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X2

EF300 said:

Have a small crack by the O2 sensor i found when I had the belly pan off. I already know my dealer won't warranty this out bc I have resonator delete pipes welded in. What would you all do with this? Is this section cast , can it be welded or not ?

Ty

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DAmn!!! THAt sucks!!!! Reminds me of the crack in the casting on my track packs block. I had after market exhaust. Ford made the call to replace the engine. I think you should be fine. Take it in have her fixed

Don't automatically assume that the dealership is going to say no. That shit has perpetuated OUT OF CONTROL and needs to stop. Did you (not necessarily you, OP) even ask? When you went into the dealership were you a douche bag and were immediately defensive about the manner and tipped them off before you even got started or were you an understanding patron?

I've had warranty work done with a CLEARLY non OEM CAI, long tube headers, Borla ATAK axle backs, no cats, and a tune.

Most dealerships want to do warranty work. Why? They get paid for it by FoMoCo. Sometimes at even better rates than they charge customers.

As a backup to the dealer replacing that piece, if it is cast stainless that should be easy to weld. There are aerospace weld materials that would definitely work great in that application.

Since the manifolds house an oxygen sensor and attach directly to a catalytic converter they can definitely be considered an emission related item. This should be classified and approved for replacement in short order.

I was at the Powertrain Reveal to a small group of hand picked journalists in the summer of 2015 at SVT's former headquarters in Allen Park. I spent some time with the ICE engineer responsible for these manifolds. I learned they are manufactured by Watson Engineering, the same company that fabricates the roll bars that so many have installed for track use. They are all TIG welded and by hand. I mentioned that it didn't make sense from an efficiency standpoit to have them made this way. Adam Christian pointed out to me that in this case, due to low production numbers, that it was cheaper this way than to pay millions for them to purchase, set up and maintain highly sophisticated robotic welding machines. I know he'd love to study this failure as this is one I don't think any of us have seen or heard of yet.

Time for longtubes!

I’m still amazed you even found that.

Thanks guys, the reason I was assuming they wouldn't cover it was I had the counter balances on one side of the exhaust come apart and the dealership told me they wouldn't fix it under warranty because there were resonator deletes welded in.

galaxy said:

I’m still amazed you even found that.

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Unfortunately I am

Retentus Ani

The tuned mass dampers are part of the "X" pipe assembly which is separate from the mid/tail pipe assembly. They are the exact same dampers on both the regular GT350 and the GT350R. Ford supplies training materials to dealer service departments on what to look for regarding exhaust modifications that may result in warranty claims (and how to deny them). In order to save time I would have found another dealer that was more interested in servicing your car than denying legitimate claims.

If they deny your warranty coverage, a friendly reminder of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act might be in order. The onus is on the dealer to prove your modifications caused the problem. Not the other way around, where you have to prove it did not cause the issue.