Y2K2LS1

I was talking to a local fabricator who builds custom headers for just about anything. He does a good job and has been in the business for ahwile. We were discussing styles of longtubes and he said he always tries to keep his headers as straight and smooth as possible. He refers to spaghetti style headers as not that good in peformance dept vs. straighter headers.

What do you guys think? Are the twists in SLP/Hooker ect power robbing vs. the grotty/flp ect style?


STRAIGHT STYLE
<img src="http://www.quicktimeperformance.com/Headers/headerdisplaymed.jpg" alt=" - " />


SPAGHETTI STYLE
<img src="http://www.rapidmotorsports.com/images/products/30053.jpg" alt=" - " />

DONAIMIAN

iTrader: (18)

I think that the straight pipes would be better because the exhust dosent have to take as many tuns because it seems like the turns slows down the flow of the exhaust, when you need to keep the exhaust moving in order for the whole scavaging effect to work. Look around, im not saying that the hookers and SLP's are bad, but ive never heard them refered to as the BEST as compared to the grotts when just about every post about them has the word best. <img border="0" alt="[driving]" title="" src="graemlins/gr_driving3.gif" />

Y2K2LS1

Yea, that is kind of what is turning me off from the hooker/jet hot twisty headers. I helped to install hookers on a freinds car and it was a difficult fit, the collectors ended up in a bad spot (too close to the side and too the top), plus the car didnt put down great #'s even after being tuned with edit.

Its funny, I cant find any grotty style headers used, but I do see alot of the hooker style.

<img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />

BYBYC5

i got grotts (old style) i love em

Jabroni

Same here! Good stuff. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="gr_stretch.gif" />

Ron@Vengeance

iTrader: (51)

Thunder Racing sells LTs, theyre based off the Grotts design. Worked great on my car.

JealouZ

I'm not sure but I think they might be going for equal length with all those crazy bends on the header tubes? I've always heard the term "equal length" headers I guess there is some sort of performance advantage?

NICK FILIPPIDES

Yes, equal length is important but not at the expense of so many bends. When it's feasable we try real hard to get all primary lengths as equal as possible but unfortunately the chassis dictates just how equal length the headers will be. The bottom line to a quality built header is that you can sacrifice a bit of equal length if you can limit the amount of bends the primaries will have. Nick "Kook's Headers"

Old SStroker

Headers have two functions which aren't necessarily compatible in a street car.

1) Flow or getting the exhaust gasses out of the engine. Here the straighter the tube the better. A 90 degree bend causes about the same restriction to flow as 10 feet of straight tubing!

2) Tuning of getting the exhaust pulses to work together to help extract the gasses from the engine. Here length of the primary tubes determine the tuning. For each cylinder's tube to be approximately the same length, you need to do the spaghetti thing. 'Bundle of snakes' is another term for it.

Whether better "tuning" is worth the flow restriction is a point that's often debated. I'm not so sure we get all the benefits of tuned-length headers with a y-pipe and restrictive street system.

Personally I like smooth direct primary tubes without the 90 or 180 degree bends, and I'll take what comes with the tuning. Less plumbing under the hood reduces temperatures there which can help keep intake air temp down which increases power.

I'd not choose the spaghetti system you pictured because of the abundance of tight bends. Your header builder has a good point. Of course, the straighter system is much easier to construct and should cost less, too.
Just my $.02

John B

iTrader: (10)

Personally I think the single biggest problem with the "spaghetti" style isn't the tubing but the lack of an effective collector design.

I also believe it's possible to have the best of both worlds with proper engineering design.

Here's a pic' of my "homemade" true equal length (+/- 1/8") 1-3/4" to 1-7/8" stepped headers with merge collectors for the ultimate power (and my dyno numbers proved it with over 50RWHP gains!).
<img src="http://www.montecarloss.com/ls1montecarloss/pics/LS1HeadersC2.jpg" alt=" - " />