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Engine experts ! Quick question

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Old Aug 4, 2003 | 11:41 AM
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conway62
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Default Engine experts ! Quick question

What kind of performance gains should I expect if I add headers on my 454. It is really worth the investment or do the origional Ram Horns flow good enough for the street.
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Old Aug 4, 2003 | 12:28 PM
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Default Re: Engine experts ! Quick question (conway62)

well that depends on 2 things.
1. What is "upstream" from the exhaust manifold.
2. What is "downstream" from the exhaust manifold.

If you have a stock intake, heads, cam, and stock exhaust system, just changing to headers will maybe bring you 5-10 HP.
Now, if you were to have a high flowing intake, bigger carb, good cam and open dual exhaust then switching from the manifolds to headers could be as much as 20 - 50 HP at higher RPMs. The stock ones are pretty good for stock setups, but can be restrictive to anything beyond that setup. If you have some serious parts both upstream and downstream of the manifolds then you are not making all the power that can be made. Switching to headers will give you all the power those upgrades should have gotten you before.
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