Exhaust Manifold Options

[Snow White]

Well I gotta chime in now on options as I am at the end of mine.
I had one stock manifold replaced while under warranty. Out of warranty the drivers side cracked in the same place as everyone else's.
So I did all the research and went with the AFE purchased from American Truck since I'm in CA.
Only lasted about 7k and welds started cracking.
While A.T. was Useless after 30 days AFE sent out replacements right away and this is where my Nightmare has begun!
They told me that they did a redesign to "IMPROVE" them so I was excited to recieve the New and Improved ones.
Immediately I saw how warped and cupped the new base plates were but didn't have too many options so I decided to Try and see if the would torque out since a pair of camps on a bench seemed to work.
Well after all the work and Finally getting those hard to reach bolts in...
I notice they left the Air Port Flange off! See pics.

I put the old one one cause I can't go without a vehicle and contacted them.

Their Response was
"I am being told that the air port flange delete is a design change and that is now how they are made...."

INCONCEIVABLE!

Seriously ready to go back to stock and hope that Redesign is better.

BTW, Best price I can find on stock kits is about $90 per side now.
Enter, another day wasted on what shouldn't be an issue!

 

[CHeYeNNe71]

Manifold kits arrived last night.

This is the passenger side kit that was $65.67.

FYI, the box says made in Korea and is dated 2023/08/29.

any updates?

 

[OCD Solutions]

any updates?

Yup, 118,000 miles and still nice and quiet. I stand by my decision that even if the replacement OEM cracked again, I was further ahead than trying headers.

My drivers side is still the factory unit and has no detectable cracks yet.

 

[Pikeman_66]

Well I gotta chime in now on options as I am at the end of mine.
I had one stock manifold replaced while under warranty. Out of warranty the drivers side cracked in the same place as everyone else's.
So I did all the research and went with the AFE purchased from American Truck since I'm in CA.
Only lasted about 7k and welds started cracking.
While A.T. was Useless after 30 days AFE sent out replacements right away and this is where my Nightmare has begun!
They told me that they did a redesign to "IMPROVE" them so I was excited to recieve the New and Improved ones.
Immediately I saw how warped and cupped the new base plates were but didn't have too many options so I decided to Try and see if the would torque out since a pair of camps on a bench seemed to work.
Well after all the work and Finally getting those hard to reach bolts in...
I notice they left the Air Port Flange off! See pics.

I put the old one one cause I can't go without a vehicle and contacted them.

Their Response was
"I am being told that the air port flange delete is a design change and that is now how they are made...."

INCONCEIVABLE!

Seriously ready to go back to stock and hope that Redesign is better.

BTW, Best price I can find on stock kits is about $90 per side now.
Enter, another day wasted on what shouldn't be an issue!

American truck screwed me over bad on a refund for parts not delivered. I will never buy a thing from them ever again.

 

[Kellysed]

Have you looked into the AFE Twisted Steel shorties? I have not heard of those failing/cracking.

Don't get them. They crack. I went through two sets. 2nd set replaced under warranty. I'm currently waiting for them to refund me my money. They also don't machine them after welding. I had to face them so that the flange was flat.

 

[HSKR R/T]

Don't get them. They crack. I went through two sets. 2nd set replaced under warranty. I'm currently waiting for them to refund me my money. They also don't machine them after welding. I had to face them so that the flange was flat.

Unless the flange itself was warped, most headers leave a weld bead around the ports. It helps with sealing on the gaskets. Get quality gaskets, like Remflex, and they will seal any minor inconsistencies in the port sealing areas

 

[Kellysed]

Unless the flange itself was warped, most headers leave a weld bead around the ports. It helps with sealing on the gaskets. Get quality gaskets, like Remflex, and they will seal any minor inconsistencies in the port sealing areas

The flange was warped and they don't weld on the gasket/port side of the flange. They are welded on the outside.

 

[Kellysed]

Here's my opinion about shorty headers. Just stay away from them. From all the research I did, it appears that they all crack. I think that there is too much expansion and contraction in the tubes during the temperature cycles and since the tubes are so short, they have no room to flex. They just end up cracking. If you want headers, get a set of long tubes and a new downtube/Y pipe with cats. It will cost you significantly more, but that's the correct header option. For the low budget option, get the BD Diesel manifolds. They currently only have them available for the DS/Classic RAMs but will supposedly have them available for the newer DT RAMs late summer/early fall. $250.00 for a set. If you are going to install factory manifolds, use longer bolts with the spacer sleeve like BD Diesel does. Hopefully this will keep the bolts from breaking and if they do break, they should break beyond the head so that you wont have to extract any of them out. Search Results.