Review on Dorman 674 398 Exhaust Manifold Kit by Mike Rogers

I recently bought a 1998 Ford Expedition 4X4 with a 5.4 Triton engine to replace my old off-road SUV. About a month after acquiring Expedition, he discovered the infamous exhaust gasket leak that these cars are known for. The seals on this car had been replaced about five years ago but now they were leaking again. I didn't really want to invest more money in a truck, but the noise was slowly becoming noticeable and a bit embarrassing. So after finding a mechanic who was willing to do the job, I decided to replace not only the gaskets, but the manifolds as well. It turned out to be a good decision. (The manifolds on the truck were badly corroded and nearing the end of their useful life anyway). As a side note, I've seriously considered installing short headers in the belief that they might improve my gas mileage. But after speaking to numerous people who work on these trucks, they agreed that the short sewers on this particular vehicle would not be a good investment and most likely the short sewers would be leaking again in the near future. So these were factory-type collectors. I took these collectors to a mechanic and he was very pleased with the look of these collectors. It took him about 6 hours to swap out the passenger side and driver side headers along with replacing the studs. I helped speed up this process by spraying penetrating oil on all the studs a week before installing the headers. This work can usually be quite excruciating and it is not recommended for a shade tree mechanic to undertake this job without the proper tools. The mechanic told me that these headers are almost twice as thick as the factory headers and are very well made. He also said that I shouldn't care about those headlines for at least ten years. It's a good truck so far and I'm sure I'll have sold it by then. The only thing he didn't like was the gaskets that came with the headers. He felt they were a bit cheap and that they wouldn't last long. He suggested buying new Ford metal gaskets. I told him to install the Ford seals as I didn't want the job to be done again. The pads alone cost about $120. Not cheap but all in all a bit of an expense and I don't need to bother with it again. Of course, after installing the headers, the truck is much, much quieter and I can feel a slight increase in performance. At the moment I'm not sure about the mileage increase. All in all I would highly recommend these headers as a factory style replacement to anyone coming across this project with a 5.4 Triton engine.