open headers, effects on engine?

gotchopsticks

Member
Sep 4, 2004
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i have an 02 gt. a ford dealership messed up my exhaust after installing a new transmission. the spacer for the connection between the diverside manifold to the o/r x-pipe was misplaced, so i removed part of the x-pipe. i had the idea to start my car to listen to it, and i love the sound. is it bad for my engine to run in this condition? the exhaust manifold is still on, and the passenger side is still connected normally. thanks
 
Not necessarily bad for the engine. You'll lose a lot of backpressure running it like that, so you may feel a loss of torque at the low end. The only problems you may encounter would be the front o2 sensor on the side running open getting inaccurate readings and causing you to run lean or rich.
 
Be prepared to loose what feels like about 50lbs/ft of torque all the way through the power band. :notnice:

Also, running open headers has always been inheritantly hard on valves, so I wouldn't run around like that all the time.
 
all show no go, pffff. why do you have to talk to a fellow stang owner like that. i love the sound of open exhaust, and i do have "go". if i punch it, at
4k i start going sideways, and then second gear is a joke. mind you, i have stock gearing. my car is nothing against a charged car, but for n/a its good. anyways, how come if running open headers it makes me loose grips of torque, why do people have open ehxaust when dynoing an engine that isnt in the car. do they have long pipes after the headers or what? thanks for the help guys.
 
I ran with open headers when swapping out my midpipe last time. I drove around the block, and then coming back around the circle this old lady in a BMW slammed on her brakes and stopped in the middle of an intersection and waited for me to go, even after I flashed her on with my brights lol. She drove away going 2mph, probably having a heart attack.
 
BennyDaBall said:
I ran with open headers when swapping out my midpipe last time. I drove around the block, and then coming back around the circle this old lady in a BMW slammed on her brakes and stopped in the middle of an intersection and waited for me to go, even after I flashed her on with my brights lol. She drove away going 2mph, probably having a heart attack.

:rlaugh: :rlaugh: :lol: :rlaugh: :rlaugh:
thats great, i get looks from everyone that i pass. if i am driving next to them, they always roll their windows up, lol. its fun to torment people, and it seems to intimidate those pesky ricers :D
 
gotchopsticks said:
all show no go, pffff. why do you have to talk to a fellow stang owner like that. i love the sound of open exhaust, and i do have "go". if i punch it, at
4k i start going sideways, and then second gear is a joke. mind you, i have stock gearing. my car is nothing against a charged car, but for n/a its good. anyways, how come if running open headers it makes me loose grips of torque, why do people have open ehxaust when dynoing an engine that isnt in the car. do they have long pipes after the headers or what? thanks for the help guys.


they dont necceseraly run open headers on engine dynos they have some type of muffled system but they do run long tube hearders
 
gotchopsticks said:
all show no go, pffff. why do you have to talk to a fellow stang owner like that. i love the sound of open exhaust, and i do have "go". if i punch it, at
4k i start going sideways, and then second gear is a joke. mind you, i have stock gearing. my car is nothing against a charged car, but for n/a its good. anyways, how come if running open headers it makes me loose grips of torque, why do people have open ehxaust when dynoing an engine that isnt in the car. do they have long pipes after the headers or what? thanks for the help guys.
:rolleyes: sounds like a real animal
 
Orange04BOSS said:
u will definately loss so much torque. definately not worth it on the track. as far as loud, well, if u wanna go deaf than do it. lol, its so loud.


ya, it got annoying, so i put my mid mipe back on once ford gave me my spacer back. those techs dont know the first thing about their cars...my "brand new" tranny is doing the same thing as the one that just broke....:nonono: anyways, would bigger tires be the best fix for my traction problem. right now im running 245/45/17 kuhmo's. i am shooting for some 18x10.5 cobras and running 305 or so with kuhmo or nitto. any opinions?