Okay so far im going with slp 1 5/8 headers for my stock 305 tbi engine will it be worth it will i gain a noticabl difference in horse power and accleration.and top end also if you put headers on your tbi how much horse power do you think you gained.And would you beable to tell if soembody took them off and put the manifolds back on basicly is it a night and day difference with headers.

 

Headers will definitely make a nice seat of the pants feel. Do you have a cat-back and a high flow cat? If not , your headers wont make as much of a difference as if u did have the cat baack, but it will still be worth it in my opinion. I think it makes more of a low and mid range difference than top end (thats how my car felt anyways).
By the way, do u have open air cleaner or dual snorkel? That will appreciate your headers as well.

 

You should feel and hear a very nice difference. You will need those headers down the road when/if you go with a nice heads and cam set-up. You really need to make sure you have a cat-back/high flow cat/ and open air element. If not save your money and get hose items first.

 

well ive got a 14inch open element and just a flowmaster muffler do they sell mandrel bent 3" tail pipes just the pipes?Also all ready did the ultimate tbi mods my fuel pressure is at 11.5 so im going to also get a afpr.Also my cat is gutted.

 

it would be cheaper to just buy a cat back than to have custom mandrel bent pipes to mate to your muffler. You wanna go bigger than stock too. Get a nice 3" cat and cat-back and have a true 3" set-up. A gutted cat is geuss is okay for now but your exhaust will only flow as good as the smallest part of your system. If you leave your stock cat there you are going from 3" to 2.25 or 2.5 back to 3".

 

it would be cheaper to just buy a cat back than to have custom mandrel bent pipes to mate to your muffler. You wanna go bigger than stock too. Get a nice 3" cat and cat-back and have a true 3" set-up. A gutted cat is geuss is okay for now but your exhaust will only flow as good as the smallest part of your system. If you leave your stock cat there you are going from 3" to 2.25 or 2.5 back to 3".

 

Sorry about the double post. Said server was busy and cut me off, er something.

 

(On my old 305.)

I noticed some of the low-end was gone, but at 1700-2000, the car started to pull harder than normal. At 3000-3500, the tone changes and the car REALLY starts to roar. Definatly much nicer sounding.

 

so is that why people say to go to gears first since the headers and cat-back exhaust take away some bottom end but really help in the mid and top end?

Also how much can my 1/4 time drop if i were to get the slp 1 5/8 headers and the hooker cat back 3 inch.Im guessing a little more than 1/2 second.maybe .8

 

You will only knock off .5 to .8 if you do full exhaust with gears. Full exhaust on these cars yeild roughly 15-20 rwhp which is a nice gain but I am not sure about a half second worth. Now gears are a different story.

 

Hey have you seen those pace setter headers on ebay the collector end of the y pipe is 2.5 inches couldnt i just cut that off and put a 3 inch bent pipe on there?

 

Well you could do that but by the time you got done with it it would probably have fitment issues and you would be out of the same amount of money for some slp's that come with a 3".
I left the collector as it was at 2.5" and welded a 3" expander to accept my cart and cat back.

 

so how are those flowtechs treating you i was thing about buying some of those.

 

You can't beat them for the price, but honestly I can't wait till the day I can get some slp's. I wish I would have done it right the first time. The Flowtechs were easy to install and looked great coated, but I hated the sound (mostly at fault of the stock cam), the header flange was slightly warped so I had to torque the living pee out of them to lay flat against the head. Thank *** for percy's gaskets that are like .5" thick. I have a never ending collector flange leak and I have so many "dead soft" gaskets in there and still it leaks. I am pretty sure it is a leak because I can hear a hiss and the car idels really rough. My collectors are bent now from me tighttening the bolts down to much. So I wasn't really happy with them. Lots of people have them and like them. I got the coated ones on sale with y-pipe for like $370. So you get what you pay for.

 

You can see where the leak is comming from. Just save up some more money and get better ones. Plus I really didn't feel much diff in power. Mostly because of the leak.

 

would the hed man headers be a good choice the ones in the jegs mag.for


319.99 with air tubes and y pipe 1 5/8 primaries and 3inch y pipe.

 

The headman's would be a good choice but they only have a 2.5" y-pipe. You will still need to use an expander if you go to a 3" cat. But the overall design of the Hedman's is far superior than the Blow....I mean Flowtech's....

 

I forgot to mention that I thinkl the only kits with a true 3' collector on the y-pipe are slp's and the edelbrock kit for the L98's (350 TPI).

 

Yeah, but a lot of people don't like the Edelbrocks for some reason? I think it has to do with getting to the spark plugs, but seriously now. . . how often does one change his spark plugs? Other than that, I was not aware that the y-pipe for those was 3".

 

Hedman has 3inch also it sells for $319.99 in jegs.

 

Don't buy pacesetter headers they are nothing but pure junk. I bought a set and ended up throwing them away after tying to install them for about a week. My hooker headers went on in a day. Mine have a 3" y-pipe also.You will get the bigest single gain from a good exhaust so don't skimp here.Expect to gain at least .5 second with headers and a 3" exhaust. If you don't then you havn't tuned it. You should be able pull strong to 5000 rpms also.

 

Shifty, I bet you could fix that leak with a good NEW big flat file, just file it untill it's flat and it should seal perfect, I've fixed a few sets of ill fitting headers that way. Sometimes you need to use a ballpeen hammer to flatten the high spots out first, that will reduce the amount you have to file off.

 

DartByU

Thanks for the tip. I think this winter I am going to take off the headers and attempt to straighten out that flange. Once I have it flat I plan on grinding/filing down the surface to make it nice and smooth and free of any imperfections. The problem that I have with dead soft collector gaskets is that they aren't really dead soft. The copper ones are close but by no means are "soft" like the flange ones are. The aluminum ones are kinda a joke and are pretty much just 1/8" aluminum with lots of imperfections on the surface. in my opinion you might as well not use a gasket at all. the flange right on the y-pipe seemed like it would seal just as good as the aluminum dead soft one would. The biggest problem is that the mating surface between the header flange and y-pipe flange is that they are not parallel to each other and the dead soft gaskets do not compress to make up that difference like they do on the header flange.

tbfirebird

Thanks for the correction. For some reason I thought the headman kit had a 2.5" y-pipe. Besides slp it is hard to find a good set of coated 1 5/8" headers with o2 bung, no emmsions, and 3" y-pipe. That is why I went with the flowtechs except it has 1.5 primaries and 2.5" y-pipe. I also forgot the the hooker 2055's come with a 3" y-pipe. those headers would be the absolute best if they didn't come with emmisions hook-ups.

 

shifty,

i travel between Cincinnati and Lima just about weekly. know of anyone that could do chip burning around that area?

 

Nate's 88


As a mater of fact I do. You have a PM..

 

I felt a serious night and day difference when I put on edelbrock 1 5/8" headers and a 3" high flow cat to go with my hooker 3" cat-back.

I mean night and day like a small hit of nitrous, .6 sec and 5 mph gain in the 1/4, which is probably ~30 hp.

 

Okay ive got enough money for the

Hooker cat back

or the

Hedman 1 5/8 headers with 3inch pipe

which one should i get first its really killing me.

 

Get the headers, it's a lot easier and less of a hassel (sp?) to get a used 3" cat-back.

 

okay i ordered the hedman headers for $328.98 shipped i should get them by saturday or monday.


man that hooker cat-back is such a nice system.I love how it looks.Also my neibhors cousin bought a more $$$$$$$$ costly exhaust system and had a 3inch flowmaster exhaust system and he said he'll probally give it to me for free since he was just going to throw it out.

 

ShiftyCapone

did that K&N X-Stream lid air filter help any could you feel the slightest difference in power thinking about buying it on ebay.

 

tbfirebird,

The x-treem lid made ZERO performance difference but I bought it to make the air cleaner look cool and stand out. The cheap open air element wasn't working for me so I splurged and bought the lid. Your motor gets enough air from the sides and that lid is actually useless because the hood comes down right on top of it and seals it off. Do it for looks.

 

just wondering because i might buy a ss scoop thats like the ones on the camaros.