[DanEC]

What I did was trial fit the header pipes to the engine while it was on a stand. Then I took a 1x4 board and drilled it for the header bolt pattern. Then I pulled each side off the engine, still assembled and bolted them back to back on the board using the board as a substitute for the engine to hold all the flanges tight and aligned. That also allow you to pretty easily see if it looks like they are fairly symmetrical as far as the collector alignment. I think we tacked the tabs on the collector side before all this and then tacked the tabs on the header pipe side while in the fixture. I had a friend do this as my welding skills are definitely oriented to a lot heavier gage metal. Then I took them apart and sent them off to be ceramic coated along with my mufflers. The ceramic coater I used I think stopped doing customer orders and just does production work now.

Memory is getting a bit foggy now but I think I either didn't realize the collectors were side specific or somehow I got them mixed up. They looked the same but there was a subtle difference side to side when mocked up and under close examination. When I figured it out I had them on the wrong sides. And as it would be I ended up with the tabs on alternating pipes on the collector and header side. After pondering that for a bit, I realized I just needed to get another set of tabs, reassemble the headers in the fixture and tack the tabs in at the opposing pipe positions - i.e. I have tabs at all 4 pipe connections on each header side.