I'm looking to upgrade my headers from stock to a more open Flow headers to give it a little more horsepower and make it sound more throaty?
it's a 1990 C4 l98 what would you recommend for my car to be more open flow... I do have the side effects exhaust on the car now and they are staying.

 

welcome....lot's of good advice here.....not quite that simple with exhaust.....usually done with an air delete to eliminate the bungs....up to you the rest of the way out....I used hedman headers into an x.pipe....then eventually stuffed two "cherry bombs" in the x pipes - bring the sound down.... and a set of 'muffler eliminator' pipes the rest of the way out...do some searches, lots of threads on exhaust....best way to power up a c-4....air in, air out.....all else, chips, air foils, etc, are 'gimmicks' and don't work.....

 

I always liked the look of TPIS headers and the easy access to spark plugs, though I've never tried them.

 

I just made a deal for some TPiS--so clearly they're the best ;-)

R

 

Welcome to CF
so many brands along with pricing from good to extreme. Quality ok to exotic. the best bang for the buck OBX with that said.
Quality can vary. My personal OBX experience minimal tweaking. Awesome low tone without drone. Even better after I modified my OBX header collector & CAT delete to 3"
economical price. UN fortunately NOT a perfect bolt on, may need perfecting, may not be a good choice for the rookies.
if only we could try and dyno them all in one session.

Good luck your choice elimination will not let you down.
Happy Holidays

 

I have and there is easy access to the plugs. In fact #2 is harder to reach than #8 since there is the AC bracket in the way. That is how easy it has been.

 

I just finished installing an "offroad" ARH system on my 85. $1400 for 1 3/4" stainless headers and a 3" x-pipe with extensions that reduce down to 2.75" to mate with the rear section of an LT1 exhaust. I picked up a complete LT1 exhaust for $80 and cut it about a foot after the resonator.

The ARH X pipe has a mount for an LT1 style front exhaust hanger so I picked up the transmission mounted hanger for $20 and it bolted right on to my 700R4. I am not thrilled with how the hanger lines up with the X pipe but it works and I can tweak it in the future.

I took a shot in the dark on a set of C5 torque tube mounted exhaust hangers. They look almost identical to the LT1 tail pipe hangers and bolted right on to the stock camber rod bolts with no adjustments. Way cheaper than finding a C4 set, I paid just $20 for both.

The ARH headers fit great. The driver side can be put in from the top, the passenger side has to go in from the bottom because of the starter and wiring. I replaced the starter with a re-clockable ministarter and ended up rotating it 180 degrees to clear the headers (solenoid on the bottom of the starter). You will need spacers and longer bolts to reuse the factory A/C and alternator braces. I was unable to get the lower alternator brace to fit around the #1 primary so I left it off.

Spark plug access is a million times better and it is pretty easy to get to all the header bolts with the right tools. I had to delete my factory oil cooler, move the fuel lines closer to the frame and add some insulation to the starter, transmission lines, brake lines and fuel lines as they were fairly close to the uncoated stainless headers. I had no issues with brake fade, vapor lock or hot restarts after a day of thrashing on the car so the insulation seems to do its job.

It took some effort to get the X pipe to slide over the header collectors, I needed to use ratchet straps to get things lined up. The gaskets included with the headers did not seal for me. I am going to try swapping in some Percy's seal for good gaskets and hope that fixes it. I think some of the tension in the exhaust from the misalignment isn't helping the situation. I also need to cut another inch or two out of the LT1 exhaust section to get the tips flush with the bumper. The included band clamps seem to seal well and there are no exhaust leaks (excluding the leak at the header flange).

I am very happy with the sound. It is enough to be aggressive when getting on the throttle but no drone at all and there is a mellow tone at idle. I think when I do a set of small chamber heads and a healthy cam the idle will sound awesome, even with the stock LT1 mufflers. I'll try and get some videos once I fix this header leak.

So total I have $1540 into the exhaust setup and I think it is one of the best bolt on long tube header dual exhaust options for C4 owners. It will flow enough for at least 500hp, sounds great with no drone and fits without any major issues. I installed everything by myself on jackstands.

 

TPiS is what I use.

Hooker 2149 or 2151 plus the 16720 Y-pipe is another option I would recommend if you wanted to keep the main cat in place, and allow easy bolt-up to the Side Effects you have.

Ceramic coated inside and out, do not wrap headers.

 

It all depends on what one want's to spend. I bought the cheap Hedman's. They are better than the Hooker while smaller 1 5/8 but fine for stock 350, they have a ball socket flange on the collector connection. I have had the Hookers in the past and the lower collector connection always seemed to leak , tried everything and the O2 sensor bung isn't ideally placed. The Hedmans aren't an easy spark plug removal but not that intolerable.

The TPIS are the best from what I seen as far as price, spark plug access and price. American Racing and Stainless Steel Works aren't worth the price for 1 7/8 unless you are building a larger displacement power house and at that point budget is out the window anyway.

 

True. I like the TPIS for one more thing. The brackets for accessories all work with it. The others don't have the bosses that allow easy bolt on. You have to make spacers. That said, if you want cheap, you have to do without the ceramic coating and make your own bosses.

 

TPIS is the way to go.

 

TPIS had the market, and did very well. I would say they are the Best , if you can get em.
My LT1 uses DRM headers, made by Watson. I believe he made ZR1 LT5 stuff too.
My bolt right in, bypasses cats, and bolts right up to OEM LT1 exhaust. No bungs for AIR system.. Oh well, looks allot cleaner.

 

Hijack alert!!!

For those of you who run TPiS on a non-modified motor—do any of you just have the shop tie them into the existing cats/exhaust, or do you have the shop add hi-flow cats, then fabricate into the stock resonator (my plan is to keep the stock exhaust cat-back after I add my TPiS regardless).

Thanks

Ronn

 

Depends on you. If you buy it without AIR then you delete the hose going to the cat and should probably get a pulley to replace the AIR pump and delete the hoses. If you want to install everything, go for it.

 

I use the ceramic paint. It lasts pretty long and can be touched up. I chemical stripped the black paint off first. For mine there was only one small bracket for AC I have to address but really not a big concern. I left it off for now.

Attachment 48340032

 

I had 3 brackets for the AC. Not sure how many attached to the header

 

The original question was "Best Headers"? The second question that needs to be asked is "in what way". Are we talking about "best" as in ease of installation and spark plug access or does "best" refer to performance. TPIS headers according to many are the best because they are easy to use and to access spark plugs. They are not equal length headers and will come up short in a performance application compared to equal length headers, Hooker 2151 and ARH to name a couple. I have run both the latter at the track, each one hundreds of recorded runs. The ARH were on the average 1.5 tenths quicker than the Hookers in the quarter mile. I'm sure both of these would be faster than TPIS. For an everyday application, the difference probably won't be noticed.

 

They don't make mine anymore but I can do a plug change in about 10 minutes with the engine hot because access is great. The melrose looks very similar to the tpis setup. I have the melrose.

 

Elston headers.. the best period! Custom made, custom fit to your car at his shop only.. all the available model headers are at best a compromise.

 

The majority are nowhere near North Carolina. LOL