I was thinking of getting a cutout for my bird. When I originally put the 355 in we road tested it with open shorty headers and then put a full exhaust on. The performance was better with the full exhaust (the car pulls harder, doesnt want to stall when i come to a stop like it did with the open headers). So i was wondering if a cutout would be beneficial at all. I thought that if you dont have heads designed for use with open headers you will lose unburnt fuel out of the headers, because there is no full exhaust to hold that fuel in the chamber. I have heard that you lose low end torque, and my car redlines around 5500 rpm, so would a cutout just hurt my performance? Here is my setup:

SBC 350 bored .30 over, 218/224 duration .462/.469 lift, Performer RPM intake, Vortec heads, hooker shorty headers, Flowmaster catback(no cat), Holley 600cfm carb(vac secondaries), stock torque conv for now.

 

The heads make no difference as far as a decision to get a cut out.
You need to have two tunes. One only for cut out and one with. I have one. Car runs slower with it open.
Tune the engine for a cut out.

runs like a bat out of hell.

Engine is just an air pump. You start moving air faster, you need to make adjustments.

 

IMHO the location of the cutout is also important. As an educated guess I would try go locate it some 18 inches back from the end of the primary pipes in the header collector. Yes a tune will give you better performance with the open cutout.

 

Hey guys thanks for the responses. So my next question is what exactly do you tune when using a cut out. Also, would a cutout have the same loudness as open headers? Would open headers give you more power than a cutout or the same? Do you tune it the same way whether you have a cutout or open headers?