jeremy b

HELP ME CHOOSE THE BEST SMOG LEGAL HEADER

Ferocity02

iTrader: (60)

Well you have three choices that I know of, JBA, Hooker, and BBK. Out of all three, personally I would take the BBK shorties. They are made with 1-3/4" primaries like long tube headers, so probably flow pretty well. The other two are 1-5/8" primaries. Might be some other brands I dont know of.

Shorties don't offer the best gains... I would wait until you do some serious mods, then get them. They will offer more gains then. Get them with heads/cam, or if you are going the all bolt-on route.

Now a million people are gonna say get long tube headers not shorties. But they don't live in CA and don't know what it is like, so dont listen to them

jeremy b

thanks alot man

Gev

What year is your car?

I only gained 13rwhp with long tube headers. The 2001 and 2002 manifolds already flow very well, that is at stock cubes and no larger cmashaft though.

jeremy b

its a 2000

jimmyblue

iTrader: (11)

I know JBA advertises they have a CARB EO#, but
have not seen that for the others. Do the BBK
have that last little bit o' legality?

WILWAXU

iTrader: (6)

I've dealt with JBA for years (stangs). Even though I haven't aways seen "eye to eye" with them, I will say the quality of their headers has always been outstanding!

jimmyblue

iTrader: (11)

I've gone browsing through numerous vendors and
the BBK site itself, and from all appearances
the BBK shorties are only available for 'Vettes.
Is there an F-body BBK shorty header, really?

Ferocity02

iTrader: (60)

Yep, they are very rare, probably just came out. Check out Jegs, I think Tybrne was going to start selling them, check there too. I tried to start a GP, but no go

B-MAN

shorties arn't worth the time and money that it is going to cost vs.the performance. If you can get away with mid length go with those.

MaxedOutSS99

Yea TBYRNE has been selling them for a while. Just called them and they are 50 state legal. So that's the way im going for my shorties.

JBIRD02

iTrader: (4)

I'm getting ready to get a set of BBK shorties from TBYRNE, along with a Random Tech y-pipe with hight flow cats. I talked to the tech at TBYRNE about these headers because i've heard that shorties are a waste on 01-02 models, they said thats true, however since the BBK's have 1-3/4" primaries, they would flow alot better than the JBA's, and while BBK claims up to 20 hp, I could expect 12-13, they also called Random Tech while i was on the phone, and they told TBYRNE that a stock SS pulled 8hp and 9 ft/lbs of tq on their dyno. So to make a long story short, they said i would be in the neighborhood of 20hp, give or take a few according to my mods. hope this helps!

p.s. TBYRNE has all their headers 10% off right now, so i'm definately getting in on that!

MaxedOutSS99

Actually just talked to TBYRNE agian and those BBK aren't legal in california. so guess im going with hooker shorties.

Ferocity02

iTrader: (60)

You can probably still get them, as long as the cats are in the same location. The Random Tech y-pipe is also illegal because it moves the passenger side cat up. I was looking as Bassana Mid-length headers and y-pipe, the cats are very close to the stock locations, check those out.

jimmyblue

iTrader: (11)

I don't know what-all you have to go through
with visual inspections out there, but if the
shorties still have the stock (location) cats,
how do they know any different if you give
them the JBA headers EO # for your new BBKs?
Do you have to show papers or something?

I saw Edelbrock sells shorties too, no mention
of EO# but I did see JBAs are 14-gauge steel
while the Edelbrocks are 16ga mild or 17ga
stainless. 14ga is 25% thicker wall than 16ga.

MaxedOutSS99

The Random Tech cats and Y-pipe are illegal? where did you hear or read that?
"A must for those who want to remain "smog legal". Works with stock manifolds or shorty headers." this is from Speedinc
"Random SHF converters meet EPA and California ARB requirements and feature special flow enhancing construction that minimizes mechanical restriction for maximum horsepower." from Thunder Racing.
sound legal to me.

Ferocity02

iTrader: (60)

In California, moving the cats at all from the stock location is illegal. This is the reason long tube headers are illegal, with them, there is no way the driver side cat can retain its stock location. Same with mid-length headers.

As you can see, the Random Tech y-pipe has moved the passenger side cat up further towards the engine, as opposed to the stock location of under the passenger side seat. Will the inspectors care? Probably not. Most will say, "oh you have cats, thats good enough." But some know where the stock cats are located and will give you a fix ticket before they can pass you. Basically, its up to the inspecton whether you pass or not. It think if you have cats, you're good to go. But the restrictions are getting tougher, and so are the inspectors.

miner_49

No inspector is going to complain that the cat was moved CLOSER to the engine. Only further away as that will effect emissions on a cold engine (for a few seconds). What they might commplain is that currently no aftermarket cat is CARB legal on our cars. Random Tech's Cat CARB cert is for use on OBDI cars not on OBDII. Buy then again, most places won't care as long as there are cats and it passes the sniff test.

The only shortie header I think is worth anything is the BBK, but I'm waiting to see if they get a CARB number as supposedly they were looking into it.

MaxedOutSS99

Yea your right about the random tech cat and y but like you said i doubt the inspector will notice it.

bigdsz

iTrader: (1)

If you have any interest I've got a set of coated JBA's along with a set of coated Mufflex ORP's that I have no need for any more. If you're interested email me at dswz28@earthlink.net