I'm looking for some headers for my 87 tpi motor . Who makes a decent set that has smog hook-ups ????
Save the wave !!!

 

Hedman, Hooker, and others. Check on Jegs or Summit Racing and do a search on headers. You'll find that the opinions range far and wide. Myself I like Hedman's and they still look like new today. Good luck.

 

Hooker 2149 or TPiS are longtubes and have the AIR and EGR and O2 stuff already.

However there are no longtube headers that are legal in California, you won't pass the visual. Shorties are your only choice, longtubes delete the front 2 cats.

 

With Vader86. He's abosolutely correct.

Even if you get a set that has the AIR tubes like the factory ones do, the next time you take your car to get "Smogged" with those on, chances are they will fail you just cause you got long tubes and all this BS about your front y-pipe and no pre cats (unless you're lucky and the inspector misses that which is unlikely to happen). Even if you pass the analyser, chances are high you will fail "visual". Most smog techs do not give a rats azz since they don't know you and are not about to risk getting fired, fined, or encarcerated for letting you pass illegally. A local shop here got shut down cause someone there got caught illegaly passing ricers for a fee.

I moved back here to Cal from a "smog" excempt state and my car failed "visual" at every smog station I went because of the long tubes, even though it passed the analyser with flying colors everytime. I had temporarily swap back to factory exhaust from the cat foward every two years to get around that.

So, either be ready to have to swap out every two years back to your factory headers and front y-pipe to pass the "visual", or become real good friend with a smog tech (not recommended ). My Vette ended up sitting in the garage for months untill I was able to find another set of stock headers and front y pipe out of state at a decent price to pass with to get back on the road.

 

As a rhetorical question, how does the California smog system deal with long tube headers on an '84 or '85, that came with no "pre-cats"?

RACE ON!!!

 

In this case they cannot tell you anything about the y-pipe not having pre-cats since it did not come with any to begin with, the will just hit you about the headers. They usually do not know what C4's did and did not have pre-cats anyway, as I've passed my 86 with and without pre-cats in the past. Unless your car is "smog" excempt, any long tubes are not supposed to be there in their view no matter how clean it runs out the tailpipes.

Personally, I like many other guys believe that if you can build a stout engine and still meet their specs out the tailpipes, who cares what mods you have. Only what comes out the tailpipes should matter. None of this C.A.R.B. or E.O number stuff. Thank god that at least the Accel Super Ram does carry such a number.