Seeing if anybody put headers on their rig and regretted it??

 

I have never installed headers on my Jeep, and I never will. But I HAVE installed headers on my previous vehicles. For the little if any gain you get, IMHO they are not worth it. Shorty headers don't do squat, and long tubes can be a pain. You also risk breaking off headers bolts (which I did on my last install on a 5.3), running into tuning issues if you don't have access to EFI live or don't get a proper tune, and all kinds of other fun little demons that headers can create. Trust me, i've been down the long long of performance upgrades on newer vehicles. It's expensive and useless unless you do something major like a supercharger. The only dyno proven gains I ever got off headers was when I put Pacesetters on my last truck, long tubes. I went with an ORY and single back exhaust to avoid using an X pipe. I customized my tune to accommodate them and the other mods I had done, to include deleting the down stream O2. The gain was barely over single digit at best, done the right way on the dyno.

You can spend thousands and thousands of dollars with useless mods. Cold air intakes that don't pull cold air for instance. If the cool looking cone filter is grasping for air under the hood in the 200+ degree engine compartment, guess what, it's not cold. Throttle body spacers are good for making a whistling sound, no gains. Sometimes people are fooled by a tad better throttle response, and mistake that for more power. That's inexperience talking. Dyno is the only way to know.

Money well spent to me has always been in a supercharger. Thing about that is on the newer vehicles, the tune becomes an issue. I may elect to supercharge mine at some point. But it's a 2014 and though I hear good things about the new RIPP for the 3.6L, i'm not quite satisfied yet. I want to see a good matched tune and delivery method for it first. If they are still using a Predator, that's kind of weak to me. It's a good tool, and maybe the best tool for the money, but it's a cumbersome process. I used a Predator tool to get a custom tune for a previous vehicle I had through RPM online. You have to download their software, save and send them your back up tune, and keep playing email tag until the get it tuned just right. Getting the fuel trims and spark timing right on these new engines can be a beoch.

Sorry to get on my soap box man, just trying to help. I spend many years and thousands of dollars performance tuning vehicles and learned a lot through trial and error. Everything you upgrade has to work together, or you will hurt the performance, not help it. Most of these newer engines are running at max capability, with out doing something drastic to increase HP. You want max HP? Here's what I would do:

Continue using the stock air box, or a snorkel. Anything that pulls air from outside the engine compartment. Install a high flow air filter. Install a cat back system, what ever sounds best to you. For the most part, they all flow about the same. If you do a lot of wheeling, look for a system that provides max clearance. The muffler is always one of the first things to get smashed. Lastly, install a supercharger and don't settle until it's tuned in perfectly. That should give you easily 150 RWHP gains.

 

Borla long tubes. They lose power.

 

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I appreciate your advise. I have been in the market for headers for a while but never pulled the trigger. I've talked to the local 4x4 shop and they said don't waste time with shortys cause there useless but on the same hand I live in CA and long tube are illegal. I know the only way for true power is a supercharger but don't have the money for that. I'm really just after the sound of the headers. But also I don't want to have to pull then every 2 years to smog this bitch.

 

Headers will honestly not modify the sound like you may think. The biggest impact to sound will be your muffler choice, the ID of the exhaust pipe you use, and how you route it.

 

I have to disagree. Just today I installed long tube headers on my wifes JK along with new cats. Same muffler, same routing.
The sound at idle is now a low rumble and when it revs past 3k, sounds like a ricer. Now I have to find a quieter muffler. The sound definitely changed as a result of the headers.

 

good headers make power only when the full package is done... hi flow intake, and full exhaust (hi flow cat, muffler) and a good tune of course. Thats true for sports cars... however for a rock crawler. no way!

 

I bet the new cats you put on are high flow, which is contributing more to the sound than the headers actually do. I only say that because I did JBL shorty's on a 2WD ram I had back in the day with a 5.9 in it. With the shorty's, they bolted up to the stock cat. Left the rest of the exhaust pretty much stock at first other than the headers, as I slapped them on originally because I had to change a damaged manifold. I figured why not upgrade while I had them off. The sound didn't change, other than a little resonation I could hear from the exhaust bouncing around. The actual exhaust note remained the same. On this particular truck, I did the exhaust a piece at the time because of money. My first obvious and cheap next move was sawing off the muffler and welding a piece of pipe back in. That made a big difference in the sound. At that time, still stock cats, and stock single exhaust pipe, just removed the muffler. The last thing I did was install true duels with those single high flow cats from jegs. ran larger pipe on a short throw in front of the rear tire opposite the gas tank. Swapping to high flow cats made a night and day difference, and they deepened the exhaust note, and caused it to make the pops and crackles that everyone loves from race car exhausts.

 

We do not use a predator for tuning. The tool that we use is a Diablo Sport I1000 Intune, great tool, leagues better than the predator. As for the tune, we have made improvements over the last few months to enhance the driving feel and to get the vehicles to a more "stock" like driving feel. Ive been running the new tune on my personal rig for a few months now and it feels great, awesome drivability, and gas mileage is at about 21 on the highway on 37s.

 

Don't suppose RIPP would like to donate a supercharger kit to a po' old veteran for long term testing?