I'm looking for some weight reduction mods. I don't want this thread to turn into a shorty bashing. I'm aware of the performance gains of longer tube headers. I just want to make sure that the shorties performed at least as well as stock manifolds. The search archives do not contain much information of shorty header track results.

Please post up before and after track results going from stock manifolds to shorties. Thank you very much.

 

 

the results are you just wasted $500-700 on some peice of **** SHORTIES.



BUY LT's, dont waist your $$$

 

M6hugger I wouldn't say that I can overpower your *** with my SHORTIES BIYATCH.

 

you just got owned dude, but get LTs, even tho they may add more weight, they are worth it in power

 

Regardless if the statements are correct, if you asked to not see a product bashing in your thread, I would have respected your wish and not post.

Back to topic......

Let's hear some track results.... Please!

 

Somebody must have tried shorties out at the track?? TTT

 

Don't have any times for you just a bit of observational info.

I doubt the weight loss of shorties compared to LT's will be enough to over come the loss of BHP. Remeber the shorties still have to be connected to the cat back, so less manifold = more mid pipe. The Net weight loss will probably be about the same as going to the toilet before you race, i.e. pretty pointless.

If you really want to save some weight then ditch the mid pipe and the cat back. Run full LT's into a small silencer/muffler (chambered alla GMMG or glass pack cherry bomb style), then have them either dump with turn downs under the car or have them exit along each side like many race cars do.

It will be loud, but rather unique and certainly save more weight.

 

WOW.... those are some good numbers from shorties. congrats.
but you have a good FULL exhaust system to make up for them.

sorry for being an ***, just thought it was funny.... haha

but this topic is up all the time, and it allways comes down to HP/$$$
and shorties allways lose.

good luck to you, im sure you might see a 0.005 improvment?

 

Points well taken gentlemen. Thank you for the replies so far.

I really want to hear some track results, good, bad, or no different. Please share your experience & knowledge. Thank you.

 

Okay. I don't have shorties for one. I have hooker lt's. and i'll tell you this.
My lt's weigh less than my stock manafolds. by a lot. literally both my lt's weigh like, <10lbs. (lifting them up myself, i never weighed them). the Y pipe, is also light as hell.
a 2 year old child could lift the Y pipe i got.
I agree with the posts above, the loss of power going with shorties, dosent make them worthwhile for getting them over the LT's. Save your cash man, get the LT's and either a ORY, or a catted y. you'll be much happier.

Just my .02

 

As far as weight is concerned, my JBA's were a little bit lighter than the stockers. How much I'm not sure. Not a ton though. The weight loss and hp gain of shorties is not great, but every little bit counts. I don't think I would have done shorties if I didn't do heads and cam, but I wasn't about to bolt the stockers back up to a set of ported heads.

 

If you want to loose weight, loose the cats, I got a bassani y pipe and there is at least a 10-15 per cat. Then get a rid of the Big *** muffler in the back for something lighter. Like a loudmouth, TSP rumbler or GMMG. Or run a true dual setup with XR-1 Mufler and no cats of the stock manifolds. My .02

 

Seeing as how you have an 02' car, I feel it's safe to say that shorties will give you little to nothing over your stock exhaust manifolds. Are you concerned with ground clearance or something? At the very least, I would get MAC mids before I would buy shorties.

Just my $0.10 - best of luck to you.

 

I gained over a tenth with shorties and y pipe. Wish I would have done LTs, but after the port and polish of my BBKs (1 3/4" primaries), they flow very well. LTs will always give more torque due to scavenging, but I have read before that shorties still flow better up top than mainfolds, especially the 98-99 manifolds like I had.

To everyone else, don't try to sell him on LTs. He asked about shorties and wants info on shorties. That is the beauty of this board, the wealth of knowledge here.

 

Hey, thanks for sharing the information!!

I'm looking at all options to get an 11 sec timeslip the fastest, easiest & cheapest way posible. I don't want to deal with tuning issues if I went with longer tubes. I figured with shorties the tune wouldn't change much. If nothing else, shorties would be a weight reduction. I was also thinking that shorties might enhance the 4500-6000 rpm powerband. It seems that they designed 1 5/8 shorties to enhance the lowend at the expense of the top end. So, 1 5/8 shorties may not be the best choice for me. The 1 3/4 ones are probably a better choice. However, there are not many used ones for sale.

So, unless I find a used 1 3/4 shorty soon, I'm going to look at other ways to meet my goal. Again, thank you ALL for your input. An internet beer "" will be coming your way when I hit 11s!

 

The 1 3/4 shorties are not emission legal. If you don't care about staying emission legal, why wouldn't you want to go with longtubes and make alot more power. If I wasn't concerned about staying CARB legal I would never even consider shorties. You can get LT's for similar prices as shorties, drop similar amounts of weight and make substantially more power. I'm not trying to turn this into a shorty vs. LT debate I'm just curious why in the world you'd spend nearly as much money for less hp if emissions is not a concern. Please enlighten me.

 

the weight reduction issuse is really a dead one because you won't lose much with shorties. My longtubes ORY were much lighter than the stockers, but even then its not a whole lot. A good average to go by is--for every 100 pounds you subtract from your car= 1 tenth in the 1/4 mile or the equvilant of adding 10 horses. You'll need alot more reduction before you come close to that kind of subtract. Sure every bit counts, but I wouldn't use that as a good reason for shorties. I would guess a solid tenth can be acheived by going to shorties, anything more would be surprising. There was a guy with a caprice running complete stock exhaust hitting mid 12s at my track. He had the hotcam in his LT1 and a high stall converter to get the car moving, but my point is you can still go fast with the stockers, I wuldn't buy shorties unless they were cheap, and none of them are new-so buy used then its more worth the justification. Since your in Cali I'd actually consider getting that STS turbo since it just got its CARB no, and you'll have more power than you'll know what to do with. The price is good considerig yu'll spend more or just as much NA to get that kind of power and still pass emissions. I know that shop that does heads/cam packages out there that charges 6 grand for parts and labor, the STS you can install yourself and some sponsors have deals going for 3700 bucks.

 

ok here is what your looking for, i have seen these hp numbers and dyno graphs of both headers
shorties=8hp on adv with a high of 12hp gain
midlength= 15hp on adv with a high of 22hp gain
longtubes=20hp on adv with a high of 35hp gain

note-this is what i have seen posted on the board in the past 5years. Dont take my numbers as golden and the max you can get out of the headers i posted above. This is just what i have seen and if someone posts"hey i got 40rwhp gain out of long tubes" that would be news to me and i would have to update what i have seen.

As you might know 10rwhp is about .10 in the 1/4, so you can somewhat figure out what you would gain with each header.

Ok guys im seeing this, he wants an 11.9sec pass to put a smile on his face and would like to do it cheaply. His 60' time looks pretty good and doubt traction is really an issue but nitto's might help you drop .10 in the 60' which would be roughly .2 in the 1/4. Port your throttle body to pick up a few hp, shim your thermostat and reprogram the cooling fans to come on sooner for a few hp,synthetic fluid in the motor and rear could pick up a few hp, taking the screen out of the maf has proven to be 2-3hp better without having tuning issues, play with the shift points could lower your times,less gas in the tank when racing,free ram air/fast toys ram air is worth a few since you have a z28. There are a bunch more that you can do to get thoes last few tenths your after.

Maybe you should make another post asking what mods would put me into the 11's, i think this is what your really after and shorties are what you think will get you there?

 

Emissions are not an issue in Hawaii. But I prefer a catted system for a street driven car. Again, it is just my preference, not a necessity.

I have had my share of header'd cars with carburetors before and I know full well the big improvements that can be had when properly tuned. Therein lies my BIG concern with longtube headers on an EFI car, the tune. The engine tune goes out of wack when longtubes are run because of the O2 sensors being placed farther downstream from the engine. So much so that whatever gains that you physically get, you lose a significant amount of it in the mis-tune. That makes longtubes a lousy investment for guys who cannot get it properly tuned. Again, let me repeat myself, lousy investment for GUYS WHO CANNOT GET IT PROPERLY TUNED. You guys in the 48 states have way more tuning resources available than me way out in the middle of the pacific. I don't have the time, patience, or money to figure out a way to get it properly tuned within the timeframe I have to work with. Our local track is closing early next year. I go to the track about once every 2 months. So I only have a handful of track nights left to get into the 11s. I can't be getting frustrated with tuning at this stage of the game.

I think I run a decent 1/4 mile for the mods that I have. I also think that a big reason for it running good is that I didn't screw with the parts that have engine management sensors like the MAF & exhaust manifold. I intentionally selected mods that I didn't think needed engine tuning corrections. That leads me to my contemplation of shorty headers. Because the O2 sensor locations on the shorties don't change, I feel that an engine tuning correction should not be needed.

I think that I am near the limits of the stock exhaust manifold going by my trap speeds. If the shorties breath a little better and give me another mph or 2 then it would be enough to satisfy me. If the shorties breath the same as the stock manifold then I would say sh*t, at least I got a (15-20 lb?)weight reduction and just live with it. If the shorties breath worst than the stock manifolds, then I'm a fool for buying it and not researching. That is the reason for this thread!

If I can buy a set of shorties for $150-$200 and get 1 mph, then it would be in line pricewise with my other mods like the ram air & pulley. Not the best bangs for the buck, but not that bad.

Since I am creating such a long post, let me put down some further thoughts. From reading other peoples experience with 1 5/8 shorties, I think the small primaries were intentional to help exhaust velocity at lower rpms but at the expense of upper rpm breathing. That's great for street driveability, but not so good for strip performance. If I still had my stock torque coverter and didn't go to the track, I might have gone that route.

However, I am looking to boost the 4500-6000+ range. In my opinion, the 1 5/8s aren't going to cut it. The 1 3/4s look promising. IIRC the gains from adequately sized shorties are in the upper rpm range and occur in a narrower powerband than longtubes. But the cost for new 1 3/4s is high. So, unless I find a used set, I don't think shorties are in my future.