Whats the difference as to sound and performance? if i got long tube i'd get a magnaflow x pipe with cats, and either way im going with borla exhaust. what would you guys recomend?
you get a lot better gains wiht mid length or long tube headers. i personally will be going with short tube as where i live (CA) there are no legal mid or long tubes as they require removal or relocation of the stock cats.
Headers in general will change (increase) the amount of sound outputted by your exhaust.
Generally speaking, dyno results have yielded higher performance from a L/T header and lower performance from a shorty.
If you don't have emissions testing I would recommend doing L/T, magnaflow non-catted X and borla. It will give you a lot more sound and a little more horsepower (less torque though). If you want to stay legal though, go with the setup you have chosen.
I'm running FRPP shorties, Pypes Xpipe, Borla catback. With the addition of the FRPP's I picked up 20rwhp v the stock manifolds that seems to be the exception rather than the rule on shorties though.
If your going to go LT's I'd suggest some that will clear for tranny removal, Flowtech's / hookers do, so do kook's but they kinda $$ IMO.