At the expense of beating a dead horse, has anyone used the OBX headers with the AFR 195's. I've seen posts where people have been happy with the headers and am considering either them or hookers(the headers that is). Anyone have any feedback on the lt1 shorties on afr195's?

 

OBX feedback has been real good here, nothing negative yet.

Dougs shorties fit the 195s real well and dont hit the AC box

 

they seem to have a good tech line and willing to help from what I've read here

 

Any gains from Doug's shorties? I have it in my head that I need longtubes for torque gain.

 

you're not going to see any real gains from shorties

 

There will be a small gain but, honestly if you live outside California, go with Long Tubes.

 

Or if you are in the military and live in Cali, but your car is registered in MN.

Then you get to ignore ALL of those stupid CA emission warnings.

I went with the Hookers

I love em.

I've never heard anything back about either one. It comes down to the price and what your head tells you to do.

 

Just to drill it down Navy_Vette you are running afr 195's?
I see where you're coming from LT1 for sure. What happened is I bought the AFR's along with some other engine goodies. I had a set of hedman longtubes that I had bought before and never installed, my plan was to use them and I had not set aside header money for this reason. Then I found out that I should be using the 1 3/4 instead of the smaller ones like my hedmans. I realize that the ARH's are going to be a better higher quality header that fits. I asked about the OBX's because people had said good things about them and they are considerably cheaper. The one's I saw on ebay were 1000 dollars cheaper that what ARH lists on their site. I'm not sure how I would quantify if ARH's are $1000 better. I didn't intend for this to be a this header is better than that one thread because there are a ton of them here already.
Maybe I could wait and find a better deal on ARH or stainlessworks headers somewhere but the car won't be running until I jump one way or the other and get some headers.

Really I just wanted to know if someone with AFR 195 heads had had any luck with them.

 

Okay, well then my post was pretty much pointless

I am running a pair of Edelbrock Performers. I honestly wouldn't put any set of headers $1000 above the others. The main thing you really want to do is make sure all the sizes match up. Plan your exhaust ahead of time and know what you are going to do all the way back.

Just to jump into hydrodynamics for a second though. Be careful when going into the larger sizes. Once the exhaust gets down to the collector, this isn't that much of a problem, but for the down tubes it can be. If your individual downtube is substantially bigger (around 10%?) than your head exhaust port, it can cause turbulance in the tube. This basically creates a bubble. Think about when you get an air pocket under your thermostat. It stops or impedes flow. Gasses work on the same principal as liquids (hense hydrodynamics). The BEST thing you want with a pair of headers is the same size down pipe (maybe SLIGHTLY bigger) cross section size as your exhaust port and all of the angles to be nice, smooth and with as few welds as possible.

 

I'm running the OBX Longtubes and I'm happy with them with my AFR 195's. It took a little port matching because the AFR's are a square port. The cats that come with the OBX headers are just for show. They flow great but don't stop the bad smells of unburned exhaust. I've been thinking of getting some better quality magnaflow cats.

 

Who told you the hedmans wont work on a 195 head? DId you call AFR?

You dont need 1-3/4 primaries unless youre making a ton of power, too many think bigger is better. 1-5/8 works just fine on most 350s

Check your port size on the hedmans with gasket/head

 

93vette are you also running the center cat? How is your plug access? and now that i think about it what size are your primaries?
Cuisinart I'm not making serious power if I can't get an obx in the 1 3/4 primary then i will just use the hedman's until i can afford to get something better.

 

Are there any potential problems to be had deleating the cats when you go with Longtubes on an LT1 ?

 

Just for an FYI
AFR 195's with Exotic Muscle long tubes here.

No fitment issues even with a road race pan.

 

OBX have 1 5/8" primaries -- just like your Hedmans. Probably not worth trading. Sammy Calderone mounted Hedman's on his AFR 195's if you want to get the low-down on that matchup. (At first, I thought he said they matched up,,,then maybe not...Or maybe they needed port-match)

OBX look like the better deal -- especially since they come with cats. OTOH, no one has had them long enough to see how quickly they rust (if the nickel content is low). Still, you could coat them.

I think you should plan on the Hedmans. I'd be surprised if you can get the larger tube size. No sign of custom configs for the OBX has shown up (that I've seen).

 

Plug access is excellent. I'm running the stock catback with resonater. No center cat.

Well the smell is pretty bad when idleing. The performance is obviously better. Resale value maybe a little lower.

 

Those are NOT cats that come with the OBX headers, i thought the same thing when i looked at the pic of them, then i contacted the seller and he confirmed they are only resonators.

 

For the price, that makes a lot of sense.

For people wanting the whole experience of long tubes, again it makes sense.

Cheap, sneaky setup that looks like performance cats are installed. Actually, a good set of aftermarket, performance CATS would run at least half the price of the headers. More, if Random Tech were purchased.

 

Thanks for confirming that. I thought they looked more like resonaters because the honeycomb was not there. Its a tight fit but I believe some spun 2.5" in/out round magnaflow cats would work in the tunnel. If I could find a traditional style oval magnaflow cat with an offset body toward the transmission it would work even better.

 

That's what I popped on the end of my Tri-Y's. They seem to be nice units. Despite having a 383 and sidepipes (with the exit below the cabin windows, the result is very good. When the wind is in the right direction, I get a wiff every now/then (at idle or start-up) but it's actually better with the 383 and the spun cats than the 350 OEM setup (smell).

Carbon deposits at the tip are worse now though. Of course, at WOT, I'm pushing more fuel than before.