You make fun of this discussion but when people understand how things work and why they work that way, they're alway better off.

Pat

 

Can they use weapons?

 

I have a question. Which are better, gears or headers?

 

It was only to lighten things up. If it got to you then I see I was correct in my first guess that its being taken all too serious. Gears and headers do two very different things and its no different than asking if oil is more important than gas. Relax there. I seriously doubt most people here are thinking their car will only get one of those two mods. In fact, even though it cost about the same most people waste the very same amount of money on an exhaust which gives you little in return besides noise for 1500 bucks yet its the preferred first thing guys get as the first mod.

As far as understanding what gears do, most ignore what they see in a 60' result. Most H/C cars without gears do pretty poorly in the 1/8 mile which relfects so strongly what you see on the street.....0-100mph. The shorter you make the race the more obvious the better mod is. Now 0-60 on the street with a great tire and gears reaches the limit of what any modded car can do. You can have 800rwhp and the rear tire you choose is the deciding factor in the street race. My vote is that the best mod for any corvette is to chuck the rear tires and get traction before any mod. Gears next and stop adding power when you cant get it to the ground.

I like headers. They add back lost economy and add what is really free HP. They make power by making the engine more efficient VE wise. Gears dont help in that department. 0-60 there is no contest and that is what matters on the street. Now if you want to discuss the benfits of header vs header, we get to the next silly pissing contest. In that one there are guys who dont like to rev their car over 2k on the hiway yet they argue that shorter primaries give them more power from 5000rpm up. The consistency is startling.

They do different things. You need both. 10 second cars have both.

 

Before I say anything I'd like to thank the posters on both sides who took the time to supply such excellent and well documented information and analysis.

The OP asked a very specific about gears vs. headers getting one down the track faster, but there was also some discussion of these two mods commonly being the first choices for new Corvette owners. I'd like to continue down that path and ask the experts what contingencies there are for both choices as a first mod (meaning on stock C6). Would new gears necessitate new tires in order to get the power to the ground? Is the sound change with new headers going to be so aggressive that it might bother the neighbors? Gas mileage has already been discussed, but is along the same lines that I'm thinking.

I'm a Corvette newbie, so I'm hoping to get more information about what each of these mods would require as extras on a stock C6.

Thanks again for the wealth of information in this thread

 

For who?

Not always slower MPH.

Ricochet Rabbit!!

Don't even think of stirring this pot, thank you. Good thread, let is stay that way.

 

A H/C c5/c6 car needs headers to go 10's but not gears.
Just a thought if anyone is planning on H/C and maybe wants to be able to break into the 10's a few times.
Stock gears get a bad rep on the drag strip because most "serious" racers go with gears for obvious reasons.

It's been overstated that both gears and headers are the ticket for a maximized setup, best et, and more than casual racer.

With an m12 trans and near stock car(stock tires), I would take headers over gears for straight line performance. Plus I think the average, inexperienced strip driver will et better with headers over gears with any tire. And I like the thought of headers allowing the engine to run more efficient.

Furthermore:
The c5z bolt on record was done with headers and not gears.
And the c6Z guys do fine without gears.
The c6 strip 'story book' is too incomplete to draw conclusions from yet.
Just my 2 lincolns.

 

If you keep the stock exhaust, the sound change from adding headers with cats is pretty minimal. Driving around, my car sounds pretty close to stock.

At full throttle, it is a bit louder but I assume you'll skip doing WOT runs on nieghborhood streets.

 

Strange that the OP never posted again in his thread.

If I had to pick one it would be gears. Because other than a little extra shifting there is little downside to me, and now there's a good reason to have a 6th gear. I mostly drive on the street and they're way more fun. Warranty issues are somewat important to me and I highly doubt I'd have any warranty problems with gears unless the diff itself developed a problem.

I've had headers in the past and they sucked - pinging, valve train noise, clearance problems, leaking. I hear the new headers are better but they still have some of these issues to some degree and they can be a PITA if you need to get to the clutch and some people think they cause heat issues. Since I recently moved to California I need to get the visual inspection thing done and headers are a no-no. Warranty issues with headers are a toss up but you need to get a tune so there is another reason for them to deny warranty coverage for those that care about it. I would only do headers if I was going to do a bunch more stuff beyond them.

I don't know what would be faster on whatever kind of track, with whatever gear ratio you're asking about.

 

It didn't get to me at all. I was merely observing that even if you think the question itself is a little goofy, there was a lot of useful information in the answers, specifically on how each contributes to the 1/4 mile.

Pat

 

Is the noise that noticeable? That would be reason enough, not to have headers, if it's somewhat loud. I've never had them to compare, but obviously, alot of guys that do, either don't mind it or figure it's worth the tradeoff.

 

The valve train noise is noticable, but too many guys its not objectionable, I personally don't like it, but I do LIKE the sound headers give to your exhaust. I know that these new big buck stainless ones are much better in all departments than the old ones I use to use, but to answer the OPs question, in my opinion if I was ONLY doing headers then stopping there - I wouldn't bother doing them at all for the 25 or so hp they add. I see people gain 30+ hp with headers, but I wonder how much of that would they have gained with just a good tune.

For me the 4:10s are really an enjoyable and more importantly noticable mod that has zero affect on anything but having to shift more often, I'm sure that there are plenty of people that wouldn't like that either. You don't have to get up over 3500 RPM to start noticing anything different and its cheaper than headers and a tune.

I'll do headers when I do heads and a cam.

 

Thanks for the explanation Jim. Then it looks like the 4:10's will still be my next mod, when it happens. Getting someone around here will be a challenge though. I'd really like to be able to get Spin or Chuck to work a little magic here.

 

So in the end some think that stock gears are good enough for the 10 sec runs whne the overwhelming majority of cars in the tens ran gears

OR

Some think that gears work to a point and then the stock gears would be better suggesting that a Z51 trans that simulates 3.90's in 3 gears would be better in the 1/4 than someone with a base transmission who added 3.90's since the gears would help the launch of a Z51 until its at 100mph and then has a taller 4th gear to finish the 1/4 with. I think the guy that said the base trans + 3.90's was better than Z51 gearing took the position long ago in a gear thread but says the opposite in this one. My oh my.

OR

One would read the simulation sheets that showed even at 120mph the geared car was still in front:


It clearly looks like the non-geared car isnt out in front as some said it would be 'every time'. It reads that the Geared car was still faster by 2 tenths at 120 mph and some said the stock geared car would be out in front after 40mph. The very top of the graph has the geared car in front at the end of the 4 gears. The only times the non-geared car was in front was when the geared car was in the bottom of its gear. Thats why you gear for redline so you have 4 top rpm gear winds and dont end at an rpm leaving you in the middle of the rpm range.

4.10's rock 33% more than 3.90's over stock.

 

Spin, with all due respect, nobody was saying gears didn't accelerate better than a stock geared car. I wan't to see that same acceleration graph vs a Headers car... I think you will see it mirrors the run by Tony B... The geared car will pull out in front by a car(or so) assuming they both hook and the header car will catch and pass the geared car by the end of the run.. Tony is the only one that has posted an apples to apples comparison.... The geared car did jump out on him like it should, and you can see the header car wins the race...

BTW- If the race is anything but from a stop, the race isn't close.... The Header car will yank the geared car....

In the 1\4 these mods are very close, but the edge still goes to headers IMO.....

 

Unless its the same car with a run with headers and then removed and then gears installed, the comparison is a waste. I have seen rediculous differences in bone stock cars performance when compared to each other. I have seen cars run a 3-4 tenths difference while all being bone stock. A control group is always large to allow for such differences to eliminate such statistically insignificant occurances such as the car that ran a 12.2 and the next guy runs 12.5. They arent the same car. Did one have a better balanced rotating assembly? Did one have a better tank of gas? You cant even compare the same car on different dyno's let alone comparing two different ones on two different dyno's. Since such variances often accumulate into 20rwhp from the highest to lowest inb an average in a group of cars, and that difference is often near the gains with headers, it makes no sense to discuss what one car does with one driver and the next car does in a different lane with a different driver. On the same day, Dave Busch was unable to run a 10 second run driving Dennis' 10 sec bolt on car on the day Dennis ran it over and over.....thats an automatic. They had a 2 tenths difference so the comparisons here on this thread are conjecture, opinion, and worth little in finding an answer to what ius likely the least important issue on the first page of tech articles.

I am not saying the discussion isnt a valid exploration, but the scientific method here is a bit shakey at best.

No disrespect is directed toward anyone. I dont think the exception to a rule should be seen by anyone as proof of an event.

For your data point and it will be ignored, the mod i did to almost all my cars was gears and i never lost to modded engine cars. I know you dont care but I have seen plenty of proof. The most striking was a dyno that read the time for a 4th gear run-up before and after gears. The gears didnt fail to help even though the dyno in 4th is from 2500-7000rpm. The gains were just as obvious. gears can be more than 3 tenths with a good tire and headers only get 2-3 tenths when they are also accompanied by a tune...which is 12-20rwhp all by itself.

Since it is clearly 2 tenths on the simulation and you seem to think the header car gets about 2-3 tenths, you are going to try to keep this going until you change someone's mind? There is no point that a header car's power differs off the line to a high mph point yet you think gears stop working at some point in speed and thats what I know is 100% wrong. Headers work at all rpm's and speeds but stop saying gears dont. Gears lessen the time to wind out any gear and thats been shown on a dyno. I can waste my time and money by doing a dyno pull on the next car that I do a 4.10 swap to then redyno by time vs mph but you still wont accept it because you were faster than your dad that day so why bother. You are entitled tyo your opinion but I have to stay here to counter it so no one gets misinformed by not seeing the other side of the 'discussion'.

Gears in my opinion stomp headers as an only mod. The header car would never be in front. Gears also play a very important roll in regaining traction on a launch and its why so few cars without headers make it into the 10's and none make it into the 9's. Gears also allow a car to regain traction after losing traction than a stock geared car. These factors to the mod arent comparable to any other mod so its pointless to ask which is better. Gears help you hook by slowing down the rate of rotation of a tire that begins to spin. Guys with gears will tell you its breaks loose easier but rehooks faster than if it broke loose with 3.42's. Its a needed mod. So are headers.

 

Good point that headers need tune or retune and gears don't so there's another additional expense.

 

Everyone has their opinion...

So far, the video is the only proof we have seen comparing the two mods in question. The only way you could ever get a true apples to apples is to put gears on a car run it 10 times, take off the gears and put headers on the same car and run it. Basically it's never going to happen. The 2 c6s with the mods discussed running each other is proof enogh for me.... Especially when the geared car pulls out in front as it should.

I'm not trying to keep it going, but for someone to say gears stomp headers is far fetched. Nobody wants to see bad information posted ...

Either way, I guess we will agree to disagree.. I would still like to see the two cars compared with the acceleration graph though....

 

I dont think he gets it???????
I think the only way he will get it is to get 4.10s himself!
Or 3.42s because he has an A6.
Mike

 

If we could get enough people to post times before and after with either mod that would be good enough. It doesnt need to be the same car or the same driver, but we need to have enough data to throw out the outliers.

I realize that temps, track conditions, drivers skill all also come into play, but with enough data we should be able to determine some logical conclusions.