Hey Guys,

Just wanted to share with everyone that I spent the better part of the weekend installing Kook's 1.75" stainless steel headers and a pair of Magnaflow polished stainless mufflers with quad round tips. I also installed the Kook's 3' "X" pipe with their high flow Cats....it comes complete as an assembly. The header is a 4 into 1 design with a 3" collecter....It is not a "merge" style collecter but does have an extended tip or cone where the pipe's meet in the collecter that smooths out the transition as the air exits the primary pipes and merges in the collecter area. The quality of everything received was top notch, including all the Magnaflow pieces as well.

First off, I will admit that the installation of the headers wasn't a walk in the park as they say, but like most bolt-on products, once you have conquered the install once, doing your next install would certainly go a whole lot quicker.
The car has much improved throttle response, and was a lot quieter than I expected with the Magnaflow "cans" on it. Certainly a nice tone from the exhaust, but a conservative choice for sure. I thought with the headers and large "x" pipe etc., that even the Magnaflows would be louder than my stock exhaust and Flowmaster mufflers I had on the car previously.

Driving experience was very good....I know alot of people claim that the Kook's is a midlength header and won't produce alot of bottom end torque, however, nothing could be further from the truth....at least that's what my "assometer" was telling me last night when I took the car out for a blast on my favorite "test road". It "feels" to me that I picked up sizable torque gains from 2500-6000 RPM....the motor really snaps up there from an RPM point I would have felt noticable lag before the install. Also, who knows how close my fuel curve is right now with the much more efficient exhaust system.....additional gains might be had with the help of some dyno and tuning work.

I am hoping to get back to the dyno and quantify my SOTP in the not to distant future....My best "pull" so far has been 346 @ the wheel with mostly stock internals (Crane 1.85 rockers, stock LS1 cam and all the basic bolt-ons....I did port my factory throotle body as well)....I would be extremely pleased if I could knock on the 370 mark.....Even only a 15 "peak" increase would be nice if I saw alot more torque and power "under the curve"....That is kinda what it feels like, but who knows...

Will touch back with everyone as soon as I get a chance to quantify and dial in the gains from the install. Can't wait to hit the "rollers"!!


Regards,
Tony M.

 

Tony,

Bandit here in Dallas. I have them on too, the 1 3/4":cheers: They are a Work Of Art aren't they :yesnod: 301 Stainless Steel so these are the highest quality you can get. I did not get the high flow cats. I have NO CATS.


I have open headers on mine now because I was going to weld my existing custom Custom Center Section that has a Breatless Performance 2 1/2" Off Road X-Pipe to the Kooks 3" merge collectors. However, since the Kooks DO have a 3" "Merge Collector" where my current X-Pipe would attach to it, I didn't want to have a 3" Merge Collector mated with a 2 1/2 Off Road X-pipe. There might have been some restriction. I wanted it to be 3" most of the way back. It starts to go from 3" to 2 1/2" about the last 2 feet.

I wanted to make the install Easy and a Direct Bolt in to the Kooks Center Section (3" Off Road X-Pipe that narrows down to 2 1/2 and bolts to the catback).

When they were installing and about to cut, I didn't want to cut up my existing off road x-pipe/ catless center section that I had made because it wasn't cheap and now, I can sell it to someone who wants to go catless by just unbolting their entire center section W/Cats and Bolting in my Custom Catless Center Section. This is good for people wanting to do this because it is hard to find someone to remove your cats anyway. :D Now you can get mine and have cats when you want them and bolt in no cats when you don't.

KOOKS just shipped my 3" Center Section out today, so my car has been in the garage for a week already waiting for this part to come in :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :nonod:

Then I will get to see how they feel and sound :cheers:

They really are nice headers and the few people that saw them said they were some of the nicest headers they have ever seen :D :cheers:




[Modified by 2001 Red Coupe Bandit, 7:46 AM 11/18/2003]

 

Red Coupe...

I agree...they are definately a work of art. I made a set of headers for one of my previous projects, and can appreciate the time it takes to make such a quality product. They also tried to keep the pipes equal length which is always going to be a positive factor in performance. From the standpoint of someone who messes with airflow day in and day out, I would confidently say they don't come much better. Whether a longer primary pipe will produce more power certainly can be debated...the only way to really know would be to do an A/B test of both. In theory, the shorter primary pipe should make more power higher up the power band, while the longer tube would be more efficient down low, but the funny thing is that what I felt last night testing the car seemed just the opposite. The car had a whole different sound with the different mufflers and all so I had other variables that might be skewing the ole SOTP, so I will wait to pass judgement until I have some hard facts off the chassis dyno....I'm very curious for sure.....let me know how your first ride feels.

Regards,
Tony

 

Tony M,

Yes, the Kooks headers are AWESOME! We just started carrying them and stocking them. They really make a difference and they really make a nice header kit.

We have a set on a 427 right now and the results are very positive.

We will be installing a set of the 1 7/8" long tubes with high flow car sound cats on our 2001 C5 project coupe within the next couple of weeks to get more power over the TPIS 1 3/4" headers currently on the car.

We were actually just going to run a GP on them.

GP will start in about a week.

Shawn

 

:cool: :cool: :cool: :thumbs:

 

:iagree:

 

:thumbs: it just might be time for some headers! :D

 

Thanks for the writeup Tony :seeya :seeya

 

Sounds like a good product. Will wait to see what the GP offers.

 

JDs00PewterCoupe,

Here is the GP details WITH pricing:
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=694319

Thanks!

Shawn

 

Hello Again...

Dyno date set for this Friday....SOTP is good!

Will report back with actual results by this weekend the latest...

Regards,
Tony M.