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This past weekend I finally got around to some automotive repair.

The flange between the exhaust manifold and the tailpipe on my street car rusted apart several months ago. I put a temporary fix on until I could get parts. Turns out the “front pipe” (see photo and notes) can only be bought from Mazda at a cost of $300. That’s $300 for a 12″ piece of cast iron.

My temporary fix was looking pretty good.

About a month ago, that fix finally gave up for good. A little internet research lead me to ProtegeGarage and OBX stainless steel headers for only $250. It didn’t take me long to decide what to do.

The swap proved remarkable easy to do. The old manifold dropped off sans prolems, and the OBX header slid right into place &8211; an exact fit with not modification. If you compare the stock manifold to the header, you will notice the restrictions in flow in the stock set up. The free-flowing header has really perked up the Mazda’s motor. It has gained a small bit of horsepower, but what I really noticed is that the power comes on sooner, is delivered more smoothly, and pulls all the way to the 6,500 RPM redline.

On the other car front, my racing partner Terry and I finally pulled apart the Omni’s dead motor. Yet another trashed rod bearing. You can see the autopsy on Flickr.