Might have to replace my CMI headers again.. Now that I've been burned by them twice, thinking about going to the Hardin Marine headers... anyone have direct experience with them??

Damn that sucks. Do you have gen x's now? I had one fixed last winter, cmi said I had the first bad gen x ever. Yeah sure I did haha

No, I have the original CMI / Merc headers but they are from 2008. I thought I had a header leak but as it turns out, I don't so I've gotten lucky but its just a matter of time with these. I had Gen-X headers on my previous boat and hearing that you had a bad Gen-X, makes me want to look at the Hardin's even more..

I've managed to squeak another two years out of my headers but not sure how much more I want to go on them. Two years later, anyone have any more experience with the Hardin 525 headers?

Funny this came up I have a friend looking at a set of 525' without headers and was wondering about the Hardin or these.

http://www.diamondperformanceparts.c...one|Y|414|736|

I don't know if the bolt pattern on these would line up properly with the 525 heads and it doesn't look like they would mate properly with my existing tails. They definitely would not work for my center engine.

The only thing I've heard about the Hardins is that the wider tubes might have a clearance issue with the power steering fluid reservoir on the port side of the engine. Curious if others have had that experience and also now that two years has gone by, is anyone using them at all and if so, how are they holding up. On my center engine, I have no choice but to go with custom CMI headers because of the height and tailpipe angle.

I'd put Stainless Marine on there and never have to worry about it again.

What he said.
I've seen them installed on 600SCis with no affect on power as well.

I'm not interested in the Stainless Marine setup for a number of reasons which don't really need to be debated here. I want to hear from people that have experience with the Hardin headers to learn more about their track record in the field. If there are as few responses as there were two years ago, then that says something as well. The CMI headers on my boat have been on there for 8 years and nearly 350 hours with no internal leaks. A few external pinholes here and there and I pressure test them every 15-20 hours and drain them after every use, so I'm pretty diligent about caring for them but they are close to the end of their service life.

http://www.hardin-marine.com/images/.../620-38040.jpg


This the one?