The first thing I bought for my Honda S2000 back in the day was a header. This wasn’t due to some desire to have Toda parts on the car or to start building power or improve the car. The car was new to me and I was casually browsing online adverts for parts to see what was out there.
I lucked into a local advertisement for the header for a good price. Turns out the seller was someone I had met previously at an MCO autocross event. In the future I would buy more parts from the same person and share many experiences with him over the years. We are still friends today - I helped put the engine back in his S2000 earlier this week even.
Comparison
Putting the two headers side by side there does not seem to be a lot different between them. The tubing is routed slightly different and the factory header has provisions for heat shielding to be attached to the header.
The flanges and port shapes are mostly the same. There appears to be a difference in diameter. I can’t measure the Toda as it went with the car when I sold it. The factory header is still kicking around here somewhere though.
Here are closer shots of each header.
OEM Honda:
And the Toda:
I don’t recall if the O2 sensor bung forward of the collector was there orignally or if the previous owner had it welded in for his Hondata.
Impressions
The install was pretty straighforward. I may have disconnected one of the engine mounts and lifted the engine with a hoist to rotate the engine to get it in place.
I can’t give a lot of real feedback on what this did to the car. Regretfully, I sold the car a long time ago (~12 years). I do distinctly remember there was a difference in the sound in a good way. I want to say I noticed the powerband was slgithly different and maybe it was a touch faster? That may be “butt dyno” rationalizations at this point though. The header was lighter than the factory one so that can help performance although I’m not sure it would be enough of a difference to not get lost in measuring inaccuracy. I do remember not regretting the decision to install it, unlike the HKS exhaust I got a few years later.
Some quick internet searches for the header shows the current marketing documentation. There are two versions of the header, one meant for competition and one meant for normal on-road driving. I don’t know if there was two versions when I bought mine, it being a used item I don’t recall getting any marketing info on the header.
