I am wodering what experiences people have had with these. I am curious about the collector design. Does it leak? How tough was the installation? What is the ground clearence? Overall, how do they fit, will I have to cut or modify anything for these to fit? Most importantly, what kind of power gain can I expect. I need to make a decision soon and I am really leaning toward these because of the stepped design, but if they are a nightmare i will go another direction.

 

do a search man. There are lots of great headers out there for the price, fitment and gnd clearance. My vote goes to pacesetters, but that's just me.

 

nice stepped design, high velocity merge collectors.. make very good power, nice thick flanges, great fit.. I think they are much better assembled than the pacesetters.

but the collectors do leak if you just slip them on, get them welded. Also if you live in an area where a lot of road salt is used, they will get rusted, but they aren't stainless so you knew that would happen eventually anyway.

 

they do make stainless headers....

 

the type of power is going to be somewhat universal, expect anywhere from 20-25hp at the wheels with the support of other bolt-ons

 

So does the edelbrock ti-tech coating rust as bad as the coated pacesetters?

 

I'm not sure there are merge collector designs that don't leak. I have QTPs and mine leaked. I couldn't say that it effected anything, but after after jamming as much manifold repair kit epoxy in there as I could, I can say that there is an audible difference in lower ticking sounds.

My point is, that it almost seems impossible to completely weld collectors, especially where the primaries merge together. I suppose a coating can help in this area, however, I'm crossing my fingers my manifold epoxy will hold-up, because I can't even tell the car has LTs on it now since there is almost no ticking sound.

 

I have the coated....18 months...look great...don't drive in rain . No snow in Van.

 

Ah see thats the problem seems like a good majority of us don't drive in winter with the salt, but we do drive in the rain during the summer. I honestly think pacesetters wouldn't rust either if people didn't drive in the rain.

 

I guess the ti-tech "coating" is just glorified header paint after some research.

This does not look to good..

 

i just bought the stainless ones. I have ti-tech coated ones. They are starting to rust just not near as bad as the ones above. Mainly at the collector. The stainless ones are nice and i just had them tigged. I am going to put them on in a week or so.

 

There's no comparison between the quality of the headers.

Edelbrocks are Made in the USA.
Pacesetters are Made in Mexico.

That should say it all, but in case it doesn't, here's a comparison:





Well, there really is no comparison. The Edelbrocks make the Pacesetters look like cheap toys. I'm not saying the Pacesetters don't get the job done, but the Edelbrocks get the job done better for hardly any more money. They are a better design. They are longer and they will make more power than Pacesetters. The quality is just better, and you can't argue that.

Yea, the Edelbrocks will rust. So will the Pacesetters. They'll look exactly the same in less than a year regardless of what weather you drive the car in. Air itself has enough water vapor in it to cause rust, and even if you never drive it in the rain, they'll still eventually rust through. If you don't want your headers to rust, the only solution is to go out and buy stainless. That's what I did. I went with QTP's.



It's up to the consumer if they want to spend $250+ to upgrade. It was worth it to me.

Edelbrock also makes their headers in stainless, too.

 

I have seen Pacesetters rust just sitting in a the garage.....within a year, maybe IL is different than your state weather wise, but there ya go.

 

I have done 2 pacesetter installs and 1 Edelbrock install (on my car). They will both rust over time so you can pretty much rule out the "i don't want them to rust" comment because ALL headers will rust in time due to rain and snow.

Power wise the Edlebrock are better for more power but the con's to them are you have to tack the collectors together and have your o2 bungs cut and welded into the headers (any muffler shop can do it). The other thing that needs to be done is throw away the o2 extentions that come with them and buy some C5 o2s because they are longer than the F body o2s but the most thing i noticed with the o2 extentions that came with my Edelbrock headers were that i was getting a lazy and slow o2 reading while tuning the new motor with the HP tuners so i swaped them for the C5 o2s and the readings went to normal.

Pacesetters are nice and make good power for the money with none of the issues of the Edelbrock but i have to say the pacesetters are cheaper made and make less power than the Edelbrock headers.

IMO Edelbrock are the better headers of the two if your willing to spend a little time at the muffler shop getting some welding done.

 

It doesn't look like this was brought up, but you can buy coated edelbrocks fully welded...

 

I agree with most points made here. The O2 extensions supplied with the headers are actually very nice, and i have had absolutely zero problems with these. I had some other 02 extensions that i seemed to always be tripping 02 codes with, but not the ones in the kit. I have had more issues with the longer C5 o2's then using the extensions.

Another thing worth mentioning is the Edelbrock Y pipe, is FAR better for fit quality and performance. It actually uses a good merge, which should contibute to making more power then pacesetters as well. I also used the Y pipe to mount my 02 sensor bungs rather then the collectors of the headers.

Also for what its worth, my collectors do not leak AT ALL. My method for collector install was heating up the collector and sliding it on the primaries as far as I could(these are a tight fit btw). The collectors were then welded all the way around the outside, and also tacked the inside of the collector to the primaries. I did not use any ultra copper or epoxy of any kind for sealant either.

Now my experience for choosing a finish, or header material. I chose the Ti-tech coated Edelbrocks because they fit the budget at the time...and my car is apart every winter so I have no problem cleaning them up and spraying them with high temp paint at these times. Now, I have had coated headers on other cars(and Coated Pacesetters on a previous car), the ceramic coating does hold up better then the ti-tech coating, and if you take the time to keep your headers clean it will last quite some time. On a DD this would be tough to do. My advice is think of this before you choose. If you don't see yourself being able to take extra time to maintain the headers to keep the finish nice, then you should just pony up the cash and buy stainless headers.

 

Also, ceramic coated headers will make less power because they lock heat in the exhaust. This tends to cause detonation and the car can't take as much ignition timing.

 

the hotter the exhaust is, the faster it flows. why do you think the STS turbo guys wrap their exhaust piping all the way back to the turbo? exhaust wrap, turbo blankets, etc. all help in speeding up the exhaust flow. locking the heat in the exhaust is what you want to do.. would you rather the heat dissipate in your engine bay?

 

More exhaust pressure does not equal more power. Quit being brainwashed. The only area where this even helps is a turbo application, for faster spool. Velocity without more flow = resistance. You have less gas taking up more space in the same confined non-changing area. You are causing resistance in the primaries. That heat is going to back up. In a turbo application, you don't have to worry about it because you have such a high positive manifold pressure. To answer your question, YES I would rather have the heat dissapate into my engine bay through non-coated stainless headers.

 

interesting..