jaywalkersw

I am ordering headers this week and am stuck trying to decide between the following headers. Before anyone says anything I am not getting long tubes for various reasons (bad roads and previous experience with stock manifolds among others things).

I am considering:
1) Pacesetter Mid-tubes (ceramic coated) that hook up to stock catted y-pipe.

2) Mac Mid-tubes (chrome) with their ory.

Pacesetter says I could expect a 8-14rwhp gain using their headers with stock y pipe and cats on it.

Mac's webpage says that you can expect 28.4 rwhp using their headers and ory.

Questions:
1) Are these accurate expectations for both of these header systems?
2) If so are the Macs really that much better than the Pacesetters in order to get double the performance?
3) Does ceramic coating really make that much of a difference? Because if I get the Pacesetter I can afford to have them put the armor-coat coating on it, but if I get the Macs I will be getting the chrome ones not the cermac coated ones for $ reasons.

slomarao

iTrader: (6)

A long tube header will provide more power than a shorty. Go with the Pacesetters. I have macs and wish i would of got LTs

jaywalkersw

I am not getting LTs. I am trying to decide between Pacesetters MIDs and Macs MIDs.

AChotrod

iTrader: (17)

I had JBA nickle coated mids on my last car and they were great and looked cool too. They are very close to the MACs with out the y-pipe.
I know PS are good I just have a prob with them for some reason!LOL! Stupid I know!!!

zlicious94

iTrader: (1)

Mac's seem to be very nice quality headers and they are stainless!!

jaywalkersw

The Macs I am looking at are chrome according to their webpage. What type and how much of a difference is there between a chrome header and a ceramic coated header?

thesoundandthefury

iTrader: (3)

Would you be interested in a rare set of Borla 304 polished stainless steel midlength headers and stainless Y-pipe, with a magnaflow high flow cat?

I've even modified them to be AIR/EGR delete.

CamaroRacing12

iTrader: (5)

i would go whichever is stainless, but like previously said, longtubes are well worth it... do it once and do it right in my eyes... if i were u i would get the new LPP or wateve rlongtubes that are stainless and they r selling on the forum for like $500...

AChotrod

iTrader: (17)

everyone with LPPs are extremely happy!

jaywalkersw

I am concerned about the clearance with LTs. Ive bottomed out my car as it is once already. Is the clearance the same as stock or close with the LPPs or do they hang drastically lower than stock height?

AChotrod

iTrader: (17)

for an LT they fit pretty tight! I get you some pics when my car is back from speedinc.
prob wed.

bombebomb

Pacesetters tuck up under really good, so good that we had to put a 2 1/2inch pipe turn down so it never hit the car. For bottoming out, unless your have some rough roads or steet driveways, I would not worry about it. My mufflers hang lower then my long tubes by far, and iv yet to bottom out in the 22 miles iv drove it.

thesoundandthefury

iTrader: (3)

BTW, here are those Borla midlengths:



This was a "before & after" shot I took with the left header being polished vs. the right unpolished.

No coating or chrome to worry about wearing off, and zero ground clearance loss over stock.

SoxXpupPeT

iTrader: (34)

i installed my mac mids back in the summer. EASY as pie install. and still no rust. i painted the Y pipe with the silicone spray to keep them more insulated. i want to wrap my headers to keep the temp down int he engine bay but still havent seen a problem.

jaywalkersw

What other parts did you have to buy in order to install the Macs...gaskets and stuff? I have never done headers before and am curious. Do you know how much gain you got from your macs in rwhp and sotp feel? Finally would you do them again?

So far everyone is voting for the macs...anyone want to jump in and tell me if Mac is bs'ing on their site saying you can gain 28.4 rwhp using their headers and ory, or is that about right?

tnnt

hey man, what are you asking for those headers??

jaywalkersw

I am still curious as to whether or not the Mac and the Pacesetter headers both being mid tubes would make close to the same performance. From the pictures both look to have similar design (or at least primary length and diameter). I just don't understand why the macs would make that much more power than the pacesetter.

The only thing I can see is there is a different design for the Mac mids for the single catalytic convertor cars compared to the dual cat cars. The 28.4rwhp gain is advertised on the single cat style...I am assuming this would be the same for the dual cat style but could be wrong.

Can you run the single cat style headers on a car that was originally dual cat if you are doing an ory and deleting that stuff anyway? Or do you have to get the dual cat setup for a dual cat car regardless of whether or not the cats are present?

thesoundandthefury

iTrader: (3)

You can run a single cat y-pipe if you have your rear O2 sensors tuned out in the PCM. (Plus all the other benefits you get from a tune.)


Some other alternatives would be to run O2 simulators, or do an OBD1 conversion. But a tune would be your best bet.

BlackTTC6

My old mac's liked to rust

Counted Out

iTrader: (6)

Mac is lying. You'd be lucky to see those kind of gains with long tubes and a good tune.