header question

[junkyardwarrior]

Working on finding some exhaust stuff at the moment. Car is '93 LX 5.0-AFR165, Ed Curtis cam, stock bottom end but with some light forged flat top pistons.

Years ago I had an '84 GT with same engine but stock heads (well mostly) and ran Flowtech long tubes. They fit reasonably well. Car ran great. Headers were inexpensive and lasted almost forever (had the car 8 years, headers were on it when I bought it and they were fine when I sold it). That was a carbureted engine with no cats and dumped at the axle. Sounded good but a little louder than I want now.

With my '93, I would like to have something similar...but wondered about the O2 sensors, and if the location of them in the Flowtech headers would have any bearing on part throttle and/or idle? I still have a set...actually two sets..one is on my '85 LX coupe drag car and the other is sitting out in the storage building needing a car to go on. BUT...I am also looking at the FRPP shorty headers and thinking to myself they aren't too bad expensive, they're GOOD headers, and being shortys, should bolt up to a factory-style H-pipe easily which woudl simplify installation. So...would you recommend the FRPP shortys or the flowtechs? Car gets driven almost daily and sometimes up to 100 miles one way twice a week-so they gotta be reliable.

 

[fox92]

i would go with shorty headers due to the fact that is an almost everyday driver. much simpler to install. i had shortys on my 88gt a few years back and switched to long tube and saw no gains, and the o2 sensors on the long tube didnt effect anything from what i noticed.

 

[Noobz347]

Run the headers that you think will provide you adequate exhaust scavenging for your setup.

Exhaust systems don't MAKE HP. Engines do. If your combo is stock to mild, then a set of 1 5/8 unequal lengths is probably adequate. Moderate to mild... yeah... maybe longtubes will free up a bit more.

It's really not about free your exhaust is to exit the combustion chamber. It's more about how good of a job your exhaust does at scavenging the exhaust out your combustion chambers.

In other words... you can just as easily go too big as you can too small. In most cases, long tubes do a better job of scavenging to the collector. That extra ability is not always needed though. It totally depends on how well your exhaust matches your combo.


Sorry I don't have a, "this is it" answer for you.

 

[90lxcoupe]

Call Ed up and ask him what to use