long or shorties??

[Santagata]

What the difference between long or shorties header?? I mean horsepower wise! Is heat wrapping worth it?

[dudeiwin86]

it really depends on your motor, and you have done to it.
thats one
and it reallly reallly reallyllllylylyly depends on who you talk to.
thats two.

i am of the school of thought that long tubes are better all around. with equal length primaries(the 4 tubes coming into one are of equal length) you get better exhaust scavenging. this creates a better vacuum because one exhaust pulse falls directly in line behind the previous pulse as the flowing gases pull each successive pulse out of its chambers.

with shorties, you do not get nearly as good of scavenging because the primaries are diff lengths, and you jumble up the exhaust pulses.

this ESPECIALLY shines in the high rpms. and long tubes will give you more pulling power on the top end.

people say that since shorties dont have equal length, you get more backpressure, thus more torque, i think its crap, frankly, unless your on a bone stock motor and cant create enough exhaust to get a good flow going quickly...

which leads me to my next point, youre a lot less likely to feel the difference of longtubes on a stock motor. as far as.... you might feel the gains, but they wont shine bright like they would on a cammed car.

shorties are generally chosen for one of two reasons.. or both.
emmissions laws
money

i payed 1210$$ for my JBA shorty headers, high flow cats, and catbackall jba) to my front door step, shipped and all from 402 motoring, in a group buy close to a year ago. that is less that you can buy a set of long tubes for of any brand alone. forget coating and shipping.

in cali, long tubes are illegal, since they relocate the position of your stock cats.

true rwhp gains?????
from all of the graphs ive seen, long tubes tend to show up to 10 more hp at the rears, and the same for torque, but by the same token, i have seen with my own eyes... a long tube car with the same types of mods as me, dyno slightly LESS than my shorty car. granted my dyno was in slightly cooler air... (same dyno, same day, i was at sunset, he was at high noon)....

so its really a matter of opinion, money, and where you live.

did i mention long tubes sound better? those equal length primaries really separate the exhaust pulses so you get a much nicer sound.

help us out here..
where do you live?
can you drop 1400 bucks on headers if you know there are soem gains to be had?
what has been done to your motor?

hope ive helped clear some stuff up for a lot of other people asking the same question-- albeit, its been discussed a retarded ammount of times

miles

[Santagata]

Mopar CAI, Predator, and Zoomers cat-back on a 5.7 live in CONN

[RCDV]

if you are planing on doing heads and cam, go with LTs if not go with shorties

[PickardvilleSRT8]

I look at it this way. I don't live dyno's but I do drag race. At the strip I am around 2-3 mph faster than the average CAI/Catback/Predator SRT8 in overall trap speed. My mods are minimal other than the long tubes and high flows, I even have the stock catback. Long tubes account for some gains on their own, mind you so did the high flow cats. I went the long tube route as I already had shorties which I have never liked. Equal length tubes and scavenging is what I am after, not what is essentially just an exhaust manifold made out of pipe. Shorties work great in the scenario of emmissions compliance or when space constraints won't allow a full length header. And yes, btw, my car is getting heads and cam this winter as well........

[MikeEast]

I think it mainly comes down to money, emissions and personal choice.

LT's are a buttload more money. An entire buttload.

LT's are more likely to throw emissions related CEL's, are completely obvious that they aren't stock to the most retarded emissions tester, if that's a factor.

Shortys work just fine, are almost invisible, don't throw codes and are nowhere near a buttload of money.

Is 5-10 hp worth the hassle and the buttload of money? For a daily-driver street car? Not for me. Do you have a track-star-trailer-queen or a show-car-trailer-queen and have a buttload of money you can set on fire without a problem?

Those are the answers that you need to come up with...

Mike
(didn't I see trailer-queens from a Big White Truck/Trailer at the Shindig with LT's on 'em?)

[jackiert]

Don't forget that shorties for a SRT8 don't make a whole lot of sense to me anyway. The R/T manifold is very, very restrictive, so even shorties are a big improvement. Much more improvement than a SRT8 would see because the SRT8 manifold is much better than the R/T's.

[PickardvilleSRT8]

Don't forget that shorties for a SRT8 don't make a whole lot of sense to me anyway. The R/T manifold is very, very restrictive, so even shorties are a big improvement. Much more improvement than a SRT8 would see because the SRT8 manifold is much better than the R/T's.

The SRT has a shorty header on it already, if you want to leave them just replace the factory garbage cats. You will see a gain on an R/T with shorty's to a certain degree as the flow path is smoother than that of a cast manifold but L/T's are the best for overall power. Yes they are more money but so is everything for a Hemi so get used to it. And to the guy above, seriously, the people that get that worked up over money are usually those that don't have any. Your car doesn't have to be a trailer or track "queen" to have money spent on it.

[MikeEast]

Money for most folks is a real issue, and I was just pointing out that for twice the price the hp gains are minimal, that money is better spent elsewhere.

Where I live, I have to play the emissions game, and they always peek underneath - I'm sure if they wanted to be a PITA they could use those headers hanging down there as a reason to fail you. THAT will be expensive to fix.

Many of the rarely driven trailered cars I see wear LT's for some reason.

Mike

[jackiert]

The SRT has a shorty header on it already, if you want to leave them just replace the factory garbage cats. You will see a gain on an R/T with shorty's to a certain degree as the flow path is smoother than that of a cast manifold

I thought that is what I said, or at least what I was trying to say. Thanks.

[PickardvilleSRT8]

Money for most folks is a real issue, and I was just pointing out that for twice the price the hp gains are minimal, that money is better spent elsewhere.

Where I live, I have to play the emissions game, and they always peek underneath - I'm sure if they wanted to be a PITA they could use those headers hanging down there as a reason to fail you. THAT will be expensive to fix.

Many of the rarely driven trailered cars I see wear LT's for some reason.

Mike

That's why I mentioned the fact that emmissions requirements should be considered as well. Money, well if you can't afford it that's just the way it is and there is not much that can be said there. I did it as heads and cam were always the plan for my car anyhow. Not to mention that in Alberta Canada where I am there are no emmission requirements and probably never will be. However the consistently better ET's and trap speeds I attain than the otherwise average bolt on SRT8 at the same track on the same night points to something as well. 2-3 mph and at least 2-3 tenths ( I have launch issues otherwise it should be much more) is worth it to me. I know that most people don't really care about being the quickest and if that's the case I probably wouldn't bother with the header hassle at all, even on an R/T. They are more leak prone, noisier and overall more of a pain than a cast iron manifold ever could be. Even look at all the shielding done on the SRT factory ones, one for heat and probably the second to help with sound deadening. Long tubes are an overall better design to consider even on a mild car provided that you can get away with using them.

I thought that is what I said, or at least what I was trying to say. Thanks.

Sorry about that, it just sounded like you were talking about SRT shorties as a consideration and I was just clarifying it for other people I guess. I was pretty sure I knew what you actually meant.