headers take 2!

since the last "headers" thread did not help what so ever, ill make a new one.
Alrite, looking for longtubes for the 95tbi hoe.. came across a bunch that will work for me. price ranges 220 to 470..
couple questions about the quality and such...


Cylinder Head Port Shape- should i worry about this? Oval or SAP??

Flange Thickness(in)- whats a good thickness to work with? 3/8 in. or 5/16 in?

Header Finish- Painted or Ceramic coated?

Primary Tube Diameter (in)- 1 5/8 in. or 1 3/4 in.?

Primary Tube Gauge- 16-gauge or 18-gauge??

Which brand or your brand is better? Pacesetter or ****** or yours??

i think thats about it.. thanks! im not going with a Ypipe, and if anyone wants the model numbers for summit heres the 4 im looking at..
1) 70-2261 2)2806HKR 3)2462-1HKR 4) 2462HKR

port shape, match what stock heads you have
thickest flange you can get, trust me, lowered changes of warpage and gasket blow out
ceramic coated, painted will be rusty in two weeks
1 5/8
16 gauge is fine
Pacesetter, ******, Hedman all make good headers.

well then! thank you.. haha. idk what the hell port shapes i have?? : / wtf

Blueflamed said it right. The only thing I disagree with is the Hedman headers. I went through 3 sets in one year. The collectors kept splitting and one of the flanges with messd up and leaked. Swapped to a JBA and never had another problem.

---------- Post added at 02:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:14 PM ----------

I think the ports are "D" ??

I bet D as well...

I had Hedmans on my 70, had them HPC coated, lasted for years......

I had a set coated inside and out and they failed. Jet hot was the coating. I would have said it was a fluke but three sets is three sets. Their customer service was good and they did send me more sets at no cost obviously but the product was cheap for a reason I guess. I had luck with them on my S-10 though.

The crappy part is there is only one way to find out

hmm well you guys really helped me out on the decision making.. ceramic will be okay tho? and im not liking the sounds of this

The crappy part is there is only one way to find out

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lol

ceramic is perfect, he's talking about Hedmans in specific brand, not the coating.

blueflamed03 said:

ceramic is perfect, he's talking about Hedmans in specific brand, not the coating.

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oh no i gotcha, i was then talking about hedman headers if i went with them that it would probably be a waste of money. but i gotcha.. ceramic then.. hmm

yes, ceramic, inside and out. Looks better, last longer, and cooler under hood temps. All positives, other than more expensive. But if you pay for painted now, after a week or two, and the paint burns off, you'll hate them.

igotcha.. now is it required to run a H or X pipe somewhere before it exits? what is more horsepower proven with a good tone? should i do a Y pipe, do i need to do a ypipe bcuz of my 1 o2 sensor?

you don't 'have' too, but an H pipe is what I'd do if you did any of them.

ok heres may take from my experience.

1)PSM-70-2261-Better made header from my experience. 3/8" flanges, still only 1 5/8" tubes, but 3" collectors that are slip fit
2)HOK-2806HKR-Better, 1 3/4" tubes, 3" collector, but only 5/16 flanges and 3 bolt flange, and too expensive IMHO
3)2462-1HKR-Don't buy these, 1 5/8" tubes, 5/16 flanges, and only 2.5" collectors which are a 3 bolt flange (they always leak)
4)2462HKR-pretty much the same as the above headers, but alot cheaper

And with the ceramic coating, if you drive your truck in the winter the coating will not hold up, ever. And from my experience ****** headers are junk. I have had 2 sets now, one for my camaro and one set for my old dodge thats long gone, they are a cheap header that you pay a hefty price for a name. The headers on my camaro just suck, the fit is poor, they hit on my floor pan on the drivers side, they leak about everywhere, the coating only lasted about 6 months and I don't even drive in rain, and the welds that hold the tubes together started breaking off and leaving nice big holes in the tubes.

Now on the other hand I installed a set of pacesetters LTs on my buddies firebird and the fit was great, he swapped from hookers to the pacesetters. And we installed a set of pacesetter LTs on my dads dodge ram and those fit great. My dad went with the painted and my buddy coated. His coating is still holding up for now, but my dads headers still look ok, but they will start to rust here pretty soon.

But my suggestion is Pacesetters that are coated, even though I have never hand any luck with coated headers. And if your doing true duals do an x pipe, it sounds better and it has been proven over and over that it makes more power. But I would just do a y pipe and a single 3" exhaust, its not like these motors are a big power house or anything

I don't buy coated, I get painted, and send them off to get HPC coated. I'm not 100% on the 'factory' coating.
I want to know it was done right. Local HPC coating place is about 60 miles form me, and know their work.

blueflamed03 said:

I don't buy coated, I get painted, and send them off to get HPC coated. I'm not 100% on the 'factory' coating.
I want to know it was done right. Local HPC coating place is about 60 miles form me, and know their work.

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Thats the way to go, but for someone like me living in wisconsin the only thing I could have done is get them powdercoated which I have heard holds up really well, but who knows.

There was a guy a little ways away that had a civic that had the header powdercoated baby blue and it looked sweet, never heard how it held up over time though

yea, you can send them to HPC (High Performance Coatings) or Jet Hot, or many others. But it adds about $250 to the cost of headers.

had a burgandy Edelbrock intake done once, looked cool

Also did the pistons on my 383.

But my suggestion is Pacesetters that are coated, even though I have never hand any luck with coated headers. And if your doing true duals do an x pipe, it sounds better and it has been proven over and over that it makes more power. But I would just do a y pipe and a single 3" exhaust, its not like these motors are a big power house or anything

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would down the road a supercharger 383 need duals?? ive never seen long tubes tho with a ypipe, would they have to make something up at an exhaust shop? bcuz i shure as hell dont do ypipes.. ill do everything else but that..

AtomicHoe094 said:

would down the road a supercharger 383 need duals?? ive never seen long tubes tho with a ypipe, would they have to make something up at an exhaust shop? bcuz i shure as hell dont do ypipes.. ill do everything else but that..

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Well true duals on our trucks is kinda of a PITA because of the gas tank and the transfer case is hard to work around. But even with a supercharger you can still run a single exhaust. There are alot of F-body guys pushing 700-800 RWHP and still running a single exhaust, it may be a single 4" exhaust, but still a single.

You could easily have 3" collectors and a 3" y-pipe with a daul 3" in/single 3.5" out merge and run a single 3.5" exhaust and it would flow and sounds badass IMO. Thats my plan down the road anyway. And if you take it to a good shop having the y pipe fabbed up shouldn't be that much.

hmmm. im still debating where i want to run the exhaust out tho.. no transfer case but i still get what your saying.

AtomicHoe094 said:

hmmm. im still debating where i want to run the exhaust out tho.. no transfer case but i still get what your saying.

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Well what kind of power numbers are you looking for? I have my LT1 camaro making about 430 rwhp and I'm running ****** ceremic coated LTs, 1 3/4" primarys, 3" collectors, x pipe, and 2.5" true duals all the way to the back. I feel that the exhust may be costing me a little bit of power (probably less than 15, but still) because of all the bends in my system. I should have gone with 3" duals from the get go, that way it was done. But I have plans for more power in the future, so that has to be factored in too.

As far as where to run it, doing a single exhaust setup would be the way to go IMO, and run it sort of in the stock location and hide the tailpipe exit so its not seen. Stealthy is the way I like it though.

My plans down the road are to swap the motor from my camaro into my tahoe, thats why I was planning all of the bolt-ons now and mabye going a little overboard on some things, like the 3.5" exhaust.

But all in all its what you want in the end, if you want true duals, just step up and do it. Thats all I can tell you, but a single exhaust is going to have alot of sound to it especially with LTs and a supercharger. But you could have almost the same sound with true duals, but duals are easyer to keep quiet IMO, my camaro is nice and sleeperish when I'm just cruising, but when I start getting into the throttle and spinning out 7K RPMs it gets pretty loud

I wish I could be more help, but in the end its all in what you want, and if it were me I wouldn't be happy unless it was what I wanted

Good Luck