The 97 I just bought has a set of shorty headers and I am trying to figure out brand. also I never have owned a car with headers and am trying to figure out the difference between the shorties vs the long ones. Is there a big difference in hp gain?

 

YES there is... You will see 10,,,,maybe 12 HP with shorties. No matter what brand they are.

With long tubes, you will see 25-30 with a tune.

LT Headers are a foundation for other mods... Recommend doing a package Mod like VARARAM, ported Throttle Body, Cat Back (for sound) and a professional Tune With all of that,, you will be very pleased with the results.

The people who benefit from shortie headers are the California Corvette people cause they are CARB Friendly

Bill

 

Heres the story on shorties. My story, but I believe it true and accurate.

First, only a very small amount of shorties are CARB exempt here in Cali. B&B and JBA to name some. Hence the 1k plus price for them, which no one is willing to pay. I went with a set of BBK shorties (not CARB exempt) for 400 bucks, because I believed there was some gain to be had, and that it wasnt to big a deal to swap the shorties in and out for smog time. Long tubes are better, but knowing that they will never be legal and are not worth the headache, I opted for shorties. Long story short. I got zero gains doing this the right way, IE: dyno tune before and after. Zero gain was seen on the dyno. (If you want total in depth info, I even lost 2 hp up top and gained 1 or 2 in the mid section). Mid section power is admittedly more important, but not at this price.

The power increase seen by shorties is when you install them and go for an initial dyno tune. The increase comes from the tune alone. Not the headers. I will never buy a set again, nor recommend anyone do. I put the money and time up to finally get to the bottom of this since there is so much out there on what shorties really do. I bought into the guys saying "I gained 10, 15, whatever, horse". but came to realize, they never had a dyno tune before the install.

They are definitely not worth any time or money. The cats and the heads are choke points in themselves. The shorties sit between them. increasing their size and flow potential does not do anything. No sound increase or tone change was audible either.

Long tubes are a proven power gainer. And a very good one at that. If you are not restricted by emissions, forget shorties even exist. long tubes are the only way to go.

 

Also, to answer the OP in a very basic way (In case you dont know anything about them). Shorties, as their name implies, only replace the manifold section where the stock manifold can be unbolted from the heads and the mid-pipe. Long tubes run completely from the heads through the cats (coming with their own cats, or without) and have their own collectors at an optimal point. Many good ones incorporate an x-pipe. These are tuned to optimize flow and scavenging to increase power. Shorties cannot accomplish any of this.