The disclaimer;
This is part product review, part sales review. This is my first ever set of extractors on a car so I'm comparing the headers to a standard system. No science involved (yet) and the focus is on personal experience and preference.

I went into the market for extractors primarily for sound and to reduce overall vehicle weight. Any performance gains from the tuned length of the headers was a bonus. I was also chasing "direct fit" as I'd originally planned to fit these myself.... I'm lazy - three kids, two jobs, one arm - and cant weld for sh!t.

The direct fit options available were; Hurricane's, HM Headers and xForce. RPW offered a set as well... but, on appearance they weren't the style, or tune, I was after. I could be completely wrong about the tune, feel free to correct me.

Research first. I'm stuck with the four speed auto so I needed something that wasn't going to drain all of my low to mid range power. Reviews for xForce and Hurricane were hard to come by. Actual images of the Hurricanes were also hard to come by. I assumed the Xforce headers would provide the same state of tune as Pacemakers based on their visual appearance. The Xforce headers look great though.

HM Headers I'm lead to believe are used on the Ralliart Magna's (correct me if I'm wrong) and claim to provide a low/mid range increase. They were also recommended as a closer fit, without affecting clearance. My car has King's lows, so HM's sounded like the ones I was after.

Finding HM headers, and finding them at a good price was the next struggle. Every muffler shop in town wanted to sell me Hurricanes - starting at $890. Supercheap only sell HM Headers for Magna's - price at the time of writing was $822. At this point I kinda gave up on the idea of headers. Direct fit headers anyway.

While hunting for headers I was clearing up an order with MitsFix. I was lamenting my sad header story to Mal when he mentioned he was a HM Headers distributor. Mal's price was competitive, I couldn't say no. If you're in the market for headers be sure to check his prices.

Five days later - Victoria to back water Queensland - I had a shiny new set of stainless steel HM Headers!

Did I mention I'm lazy? So I park the car at the muffler shop - The Exhaust & Brake Center, on Gordon Street Mackay - and walk away. Twenty minutes later I'm called back. Turns out HM had sent two rear header sets, no front bank set of pipes. Bummer.

A quick call to Mal and the issue is sorted within half an hour - the front pipes sent that day. Along with a personal apology from Nicole at HM Headers. Cant imagine what Mal said to the guys at HM to bring that on. :hmm:

I had to be taxied around by the missus and drive her X-Trail all weekend... its a manual and I have one arm. Great fun. I seriously missed my car. There are two strains of Road Rage; normal road rage, and, road rage you get when your missus is driving.


Today is day one of HM Headers on my Magna. I'm like a kid on Christmas morning!

I've driven from the muffler shop to the kids school and home. Acceleration is improved, but I'm yet to get solid figures. From 2500rpm to 4000rpm as improved noticeably. Top end power appears unchanged. Zero to 100kmph "feels" the same. I'll test again later tonight.

Sound is freakin' awesome! Love it. Current exhaust system consists of; HM Headers, standard flow cat convertor, hot dog style centre muffler and a Lukey Rear muffler. Intake side of things is dead standard. Its loud, but not loud enough to attract the fuzz. I'll upload some video later as well.

Weight reduction... again I didn't get solid figures. But I'd like to think I've shed between 5kg and 10kg from the car with HM headers. Combine that weight reduction with that of the Lukey and centre mufflers and I'd say I'm down a shade under 20kg overall. Which on an executive is about as good as it'll get. There's not much else I can strip weight from... apart from my own mysteriously expanding body.

I'll update this post as I get more figures from Evoscan, fuel economy changes and either 0-100 times or 1/4 mile times. Something concrete and "real world" to compare.

Big thanks to Mal at MitsFix, and to the team at The Exhaust & Brake Centre.

Sweet write up mate :-) i've been thinking about aftermarket headers, if not for performance but for the exhaust note as i know on some cars it makes it sounds so angry. Nice Job :-)

nice write up mate, ive got them as well , there not a bad extractor for the price

are these the same that are on ralliarts?

are these the same that are on ralliarts?

http://www.aussiemagna.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55681

Best link I could find on a quick search.

Yep Hayden, same as what we have......and we didn't need to ring around for pricing !!!

Doesn't really make sense to me why ralliarts are less then 10kwatw more then a standard vrx. I thought the cams + higher compression alone would give that let alone headers. Maybe the tune isn't as agressive for the hardware. Will see when i get my tune how much it increases!

Doesn't really make sense to me why ralliarts are less then 10kwatw more then a standard vrx

Arent the Ralliarts AWD? Drive train losses might account for the missing Kw?

I'd swap my headers for AWD :(

nah front

has anyone had redback extractors?

I assumed the Xforce headers would provide the same state of tune as Pacemakers based on their visual appearance. The Xforce headers look great though.
AMC member matty.c had a set of Xforce headers on his KJ Verada and did not have anything good to say about them. I'm pretty sure he swapped them for a set of Pacemakers which he thought were much better.

I avhe now removed 2 sets of these XForce rubbish and replaced with HM, the XForce tend to crack, are very thin wall stainless and are very poorly made

Got HM Headers as well, albeit, the AWD version. Noticed a lot of improvement at low to mid revs. Love the v8 like burble it makes as well.
Also, most importantly, the drone synomynous autos and lukey muffler has disappeared as well. I got mine from HM Header's eBay shop for approx $350 and fitted by exhaust plus for $100. That was over 2 years ago.

HM Header's eBay shop for approx $350 and fitted by exhaust plus for $100.

Only in my accountants wildest dreams do a set of headers, or fitting, cost that nowadays.

Only in my accountants wildest dreams do a set of headers, or fitting, cost that nowadays.

Fitting shouldn't cost more than that as it is literally a 30 - 45 minute job as it is a bolt-on header.

Fitting shouldn't cost more than that as it is literally a 30 - 45 minute job as it is a bolt-on header.

The flex pipe extension length changed somewhere between TF/KF and TL/KL...How do I know? I have both cars, and I measured them up...the HM headers with the flex are measured up for the earlier model Magnas...(at least for the FWD models). Obviously if you didn't need to change it for the AWD model because there was only one common length across all of them. Just a heads up anyway.

Only in my accountants wildest dreams do a set of headers, or fitting, cost that nowadays.

My headers cost that much too, about two or three years ago...opportunistic buy. Fitting was another story. See previous post.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-GPaxBkR1A

Video - just with the car stationary. Cuts to tacho but sound is still sourced from the rear, to give a better idea of noise versus RPM.

I have a Saturday off for the first time in about thirteen years. Plan to log some Evoscan data and compare it to old logs - see if there's any change anywhere. Then do a couple of 0-100kmph runs. Generally find any data from when the car was standard then re-run to compare now things have changed.