I am thinking about getting headers and i dont know what brand, long or short, and if I would need to get high flow cats or use stock cats. I have borla stingers and am going to get a C.A.I.and I think that is the most i willdo for performance. How hard are they to install and what am i looking at cost wise ballpark. I would appreciate any info i can get.
thanks

 

Headers are not difficult to install if you have a lift so you can get under the car, and a good set of tools. they are a tight fit and lots of little bits and pieces to remove and replace but it is not like changing a head or anything.

Get long tube headers (not shorties) with a 1 3/4 inch pipe diameter (not wider), from a good manufacturers. Fit and weld/finish quality is more important than power output. There is very little real difference in power addition among all the good long tube headers. Look over the various companies advertising on this forum for a start.

have the car tuned after they and the CAI are installed. That will make a difference too.

 

thanks for the info and do i need to get high flow cats or stay with stock cats, i live in austin, Tx and we have to get emissions tests so i dont think i can run without cats on it. Also I realize that the high flow cats willprobably givemore power increase thanstock but is it worth the cost???? Just curious
thanks

 

On an otherwise stock car you can get buy with keeping the stock cats. However, high-flow cats won't hurt and they leave you the capacity to absorb future mods.

You might think of putting dummy O2 sensors in the headers -- any good shop will kow how.

Have the car tuned shortly of immediately after, not just because it will run better, but because sometimes a car will run rich after having headers put on it. If it does the extra gas it dumps into the headers plus the higher flow rateof the exhaust can burn out your cats -- and since you have to get emissions tests, you would have to replace them.

This brings up a point: does you state actually run a real, honest to God tailpie emissions test of do they merely hook up to the car's OBD port and query the engine computer "is everything good?" If the latter, the engine computer cannot tell (with dummy sensors) that there is any problem and it will pass whether the cats are burned out or not (or even if they aren't there).

Still, its a good idea to keep the cats and make sure they work. They really do not rob any power, and we all have to breath the air.

 

I have a buddy who put LG Pro Longtubes with high flow cats on his and I loved it as a matter of fact I have them on the way for mine. You can definetely feel the difference.

 

Long tube headers are one of the moxt effective mods for the LS engine and in fact one of the most effective I have ever seen on any car. The LS engines just seem to like the effect -- it really wakes them up, particuarly in the mid range. I'd recommend it as the first mod to do, more important even than a cat back, etc.

 

hey i live in austin, too. they really run it strict on the emissions testing. on my dad's high performance truck he had the cats hollowed out to make it look like he had real catalytic converters but they were really just straight through tubes. anyways, he failed the test and was forced get the high performance cats.