which headers are better, shorties or longtubes? i have hedman shorties on it right now and they blow. should i get another brand of shorties or upgrade to longtubes?
long tube headers vs shorties, which is better?
- Thread starter mustanghunter50
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I'd say LT's but on a bone stock or mostly stock engine you won't see much gains over aftermarket shortys....also keep in mind that long tubes will drag and scrape everything if your car is too low, whereas shorties can be tucked up a couple inches higher along with the mid pipe. Also, in the event of hitting a pothole or something bad, you'll likely ruin a set of full lengths, which cost more to replace than a mid pipe with shorties.....i'm not trying to sway you away from LTs, just giving some tips that might not get passed on from anyone else. Another thing you don't hear much of is that LTs will actually quiet your car down a tad vs. shorties.
srothfuss
Last night I stabbed the same guy 7 times in a row
MustangGT92
New Member
For a serious car you pretty much have to go long tubes. I guess my car running 11's can't be considered a serious car because i run shortie's. shorties are just easyier and there is not all that much power difference between the 2 types of headers. Yes if i was running bb cubes in a small block and over 500 N/A hp well i better have long tubes. But for the average 350hp sbf shorties are fine. lol i wish 350 ponies was the average sbf on the road. then we would never worry bout anything beating us.
85_SS_302_Coupe said:
Everything in you post was right on and gave a good point up until you said longtubes would quiet the car down. Where did you hear that? The longtubes will certainly not quiet down your car. If anything it will make it louder. HP=Noise. You make more power you move more air through the motor the louder the car is. Plain and simple. Add h/c/i to you current exhaust set up and see if the car isn't much louder. Why... because you are moving much more air/ making more power. Same thing with the longtubes. Make more power/ make more noise.
mustangillusion
Founding Member
I would suggest the ceramic coated ones.
Redrooster said:
Have you ever ran LTs on your car? I know because it did it on MY car, so i'm not talking out my ass. To a point, loud is loud and you won't even notice the difference...like now, i'm running dumped 1 chambers and it's loud as hell so there's not much difference, but back when i ran full exhaust it was WAY quieter than any of my friends who ran the same exhaust with the same mufflers (being in a car club with over 1k members, you get pretty big cruise in and lots of cars to compare, so again, i'm not talking out my ass).
Adding H/C/I is in no way compariable to adding an full length headers vs. shorties. That's like saying Edelbrock heads made my car louder than AFR heads. The reason LT's make the car quieter is because they equal out the exhaust pulses, which smooths out the flow of the exhaust, making for a smoother sound which equals a quieter sound. We're not talking drastic changes here, but it is there.
85_SS_302_Coupe said:
I've been working on Mustangs for about 15 years and owned about ten. So I'm not talking out of my ass either. My current combo has longtubes on it. There was a noticable difference between the longtubes and the factory shorties. The longtubes are much louder. According to your reasoning the longtubes will be quieter because they equal out the flow. So by that an equal length shorty must be quieter than a unequal huh?
I agree the longtubes will change the tone of the exhaust. I understand that the H/C/I combo is a diffferent senario, but it has the same principal. I was trying to make a point that more power means more noise. To say they will be quieter just doesn't make sense.
Flavadave4
Active Member
I have MAC shorties and i absolutly hate them, they were a pain in the butt to install and constantly have to tighten them up.
They do sound great with off road H and some flows.
I just installed some BBK long tubes on a freinds car....alot easier and i like the single flange contruction alot better.....car sounds sick with a x pipe and flows
I would go with LT's if you can spare the extra dough
They do sound great with off road H and some flows.
I just installed some BBK long tubes on a freinds car....alot easier and i like the single flange contruction alot better.....car sounds sick with a x pipe and flows
I would go with LT's if you can spare the extra dough
Redrooster said:
Ok if you're comparing LT's to factory shorties, then just about anything will be louder because the factory shorties were built with keeping the car quiet in mind...i don't compare ANYTHING to factory shorties lol. All i'm sayin is that i've installed and ran every header type out there, save for "mid length" with you usually only see on mod engines unless they're custom, and with a full exhaust i've noticed the LT's are quieter than shorties every time. Like i said in the first post, a "tad" quieter, so it's not like i'm saying it's a some monumental difference. I mean geez, click the link in my sig and you'll see my car is far from quiet now, but the exhaust that's on my car now came from my buddy's '86 and it was much louder on his car, and he ran BBK equal lengths.
Flavadave4 said:
Do yourself a favor and get allen head bolts for them if you can't afford/won't bother with locking bolts. This way, at least when you have to tighten them you can get a good crank on'em with the allen key without worrying about stripping the bolts.
Flavadave4
Active Member
85_SS_302_Coupe said:
thats exactly what i did to fix the problem.......i used a lock washer, it helped a little but like you said atleast i can get a allen wrench to crank down on them.
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