yes the lower is more restictive. he gets right around $200 or so but well worth it. the chinese replicas still need to be cleaned up, they have casting left in them and alot of guys complain about the distributor relief not having enough clearance. an explorer intake is a good swap also.
the stock shorties are not really restictive in a sence. they picked up 7-10hp over the stock cast iron headers from the non H.O. 5ltrs. they do have some restrictive contours persay but you got rid of the biggest restictor already, the stock exhaust and the aod cars had a more restictive exhaust than the 5spd cars. swaping shorties is a common mod because it's easy vs long tubes, but the long tubes net a bigger gain. going to the 1 5/8 tubes gains a little in the mid range but drops low end torque due to loss in flow velocity vs increase in flow volume, just like going over 2.5 inch exhaust kills your torque. you need a certian amount of back pressure and velocity, which is a whole nother thing.
get headers that are ceramic coated inside and out, like ford racing(which uses jet hot) or jba(big $$) the coating on the inside is the big thing. the coating isn't just for rust proofing but also offers hp gains, by keeping the heat inside the headers it accelerates the pulsed-vacuum effect on headers, resulting in more effective scavenging of cylinders. The increased velocity of exhaust gases produced by higher exit inertia not only clears each cylinder more quickly; it also draws in the next fuel/air charge more efficiently, vs standard headers read about this on jet hot's web site.
http://www.jet-hot.com/
have fun on your project.
Thanks.
