SHORTY HEADERS...CALI EMISSIONS

EPIK

Member
Jul 3, 2004
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I WAS INTERESTED IN GETTING SOME SHORTY HEADERS FOR MY 96 GT,BUT DONT WANT TO DEAL WITH EMISSIONS ISSUES. I LIVE IN CALIFORNIA WHICH EVERYONE KNOWS HAS THE STRICTEST LAWS. AS FAR AS I KNOW JBA SHORTYS ARE THE ONLY ONES THAT ARE LEGAL IN CALIFORNIA, BUT THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE. I WAS MORE INTERESTED IN GETTING THE FORD RACING SHORTYS BECAUSE THEY ARE ALOT CHEAPER, AND THEY ARE ALSO 409 STAINLESS STEEL. IF I DO GET THE FORD RACING HEADERS WILL I NOT PASS SMOG? IF NOT,WHY?ANY INFO WILL BE APPRECIATED...THANKS
 
a) stop shouting. :D
b) JBA shorties outperform the FRPP shorties.
c) the search feature works - there are 1000s of threads on shorties. :shrug:

1tirefire - the JBAs usually put out 8-10rwhp. I have yet to see a dyno sheet on the BBKs.
 
I went with the bbk's, after purchasing a used set of jba's off of ebay and finding them to be cracked in 4 different places 3 spots on the passanger side and one spot on the drivers side (apparantly this is a major problem with jba shorties, http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?t=219613&highlight=headers+cracked
http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=479921&highlight=cracked+headers
http://www.corral.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=276922&highlight=cracked+headers )
I wasnt to impressed looking at the quality of the jba's weld job or materials used in making the header, and I know some poeple defense of these headers are gonna say well they were installed improperly, I call b.s. on that, you have to be one major moron to muck up a header install, and these were the titanium coated ones, looking at the quality difference of the 2 I would have to say that the bbks are put together much better and use a cast iron collector on the passenger side which should not crack like the jbas, as for which one would make more power, heck I dont know, did way to much to my motor to be able to tell what difference the headers would make, and personally I dont care if jba headers make more power, with the risk of cracking the header and having to replace the things because of this cracking, and headers on our cars is a bitch wether it be shorties or longtubes and I have done both, its not worth the few horse power it would make over even the frpp shorties ( which I have also heard they had cracking issues on their older headers), however on a side note the bbks actually weigh about 3 times more the the jbas, so they are heavy frickin headers they actually weighed more than my bbk longtubes,
Im not telling you to not buy the jba's just letting you know the risk involved with them, cause most people will tell you to go with longtubes or the jbas shorties and everthing else is crap, well jba's common problem with cracking equals crap in my book.