Headers

[Venom]

ive been thinking about buying headers for my 2001 Chevy tahoe I just have a k&n intake and flowmaster force 2 cat back. I am going to get it tuned by blackbear very soon and was wondering about my headers I can’t really do longtubes cuz I have emissions. But I was thinking about bbk shortys are they worth it at all. Does anything change other then sound and looks with a tune

 

[Tonyrodz]

@kbuskill

 

[kbuskill]

I went with a set of JBA "Cat4ward" headers... they are basically identical to the Gibson and BBK shorties I believe.

I got the Titanium ceramic coating to help hold the heat in the pipes. Hot gases flow faster than cold gases.

I then turned around a day or two later and cut the cats out which caused me to lose a lot of bottom end torque SO... I had a custom Y-pipe made out of 2 1/4" pipe, which is smaller than the factory 2 3/4" Y-pipe and that restored my lost bottom end. Of course I had to get Lew from Diablew tunes to update my custom tune after all of that. There were also SEVERAL different mufflers installed within a week or two period because removing the cats made the truck obscenely loud... which was not my goal.

The moral of the story is... I really changed TOO MUCH at once to really be able to give you an honest assessment of what the shorties did for me by their self.

I will say that I am well pleased with the final result and the Burb has a lot more get up and go than before.

For the record I have an '08 Burb LTZ 2wd with the 5.3l and 4 speed transmission.

It has a K&N style air filter in the factory air box with the "Big Air Fender Mod" ( I just made that name up) and an Airaid MIT tube, ceramic coated JBA shorty headers, cat delete, custom extended Y-pipe into a 36" Magna Flow 3 chamber stainless muffler with factory resonator reconfigured to run the exhaust straight out the back through a 4" stainless angle cut tip... it is also has the TCM custom tuned and the ECM custom tuned for 89 octane by Lew from Diablew tuning... he does custom tunes via the Diablo sport tuners.

Sorry for the long post.

 

[Tonyrodz]

I went with a set of JBA "Cat4ward" headers... they are basically identical to the Gibson and BBK shorties I believe.

I got the Titanium ceramic coating to help hold the heat in the pipes. Hot gases flow faster than cold gases.

I then turned around a day or two later and cut the cats out which caused me to lose a lot of bottom end torque SO... I had a custom Y-pipe made out of 2 1/4" pipe, which is smaller than the factory 2 3/4" Y-pipe and that restored my lost bottom end. Of course I had to get Lew from Diablew tunes to update my custom tune after all of that. There were also SEVERAL different mufflers installed within a week or two period because removing the cats made the truck obscenely loud... which was not my goal.

The moral of the story is... I really changed TOO MUCH at once to really be able to give you an honest assessment of what the shorties did for me.

I will say that I am well pleased with the final result and the Burb has a lot more get up and go than before.

For the record I have an '08 Burb LTZ 2wd with the 5.3l and 4 speed transmission.

It has a K&N style air filter in the factory air box with the "Big Air Fender Mod" ( I just made that name up) and an Airaid MIT tube, ceramic coated JBA shorty headers, cat delete, custom extended Y-pipe into a 36" Magna Flow 3 chamber stainless muffler with factory resonator reconfigured to run the exhaust straight out the back through a 4" stainless angle cut tip... it is also has the TCM custom tuned and the ECM custom tuned for 89 octane by Lew from Diablew tuning... he does custom tunes via the Diablo sport tuners.

Sorry for the long post.

Not long--informative. Good info.

 

[Rocket Man]

You can do longtubes and still pass emissions. Especially if BB does a tune, in which case you can buy headers without cats and have the downstream o2 sensors tuned out if your state doesn't visually inspect for cats. If they do, there’s companies that make longtubes with cats. American a Racing and Kooks make them, both kinda spendy but there are cheaper options.

 

[Venom]

You can do longtubes and still pass emissions. Especially if BB does a tune, in which case you can buy headers without cats and have the downstream o2 sensors tuned out if your state doesn't visually inspect for cats. If they do, there’s companies that make longtubes with cats. American a Racing and Kooks make them, both kinda spendy but there are cheaper options.

Okay ima look into that and maybe see if the guy that does my inspection looks or not

 

[Venom]

I went with a set of JBA "Cat4ward" headers... they are basically identical to the Gibson and BBK shorties I believe.

I got the Titanium ceramic coating to help hold the heat in the pipes. Hot gases flow faster than cold gases.

I then turned around a day or two later and cut the cats out which caused me to lose a lot of bottom end torque SO... I had a custom Y-pipe made out of 2 1/4" pipe, which is smaller than the factory 2 3/4" Y-pipe and that restored my lost bottom end. Of course I had to get Lew from Diablew tunes to update my custom tune after all of that. There were also SEVERAL different mufflers installed within a week or two period because removing the cats made the truck obscenely loud... which was not my goal.

The moral of the story is... I really changed TOO MUCH at once to really be able to give you an honest assessment of what the shorties did for me by their self.

I will say that I am well pleased with the final result and the Burb has a lot more get up and go than before.

For the record I have an '08 Burb LTZ 2wd with the 5.3l and 4 speed transmission.

It has a K&N style air filter in the factory air box with the "Big Air Fender Mod" ( I just made that name up) and an Airaid MIT tube, ceramic coated JBA shorty headers, cat delete, custom extended Y-pipe into a 36" Magna Flow 3 chamber stainless muffler with factory resonator reconfigured to run the exhaust straight out the back through a 4" stainless angle cut tip... it is also has the TCM custom tuned and the ECM custom tuned for 89 octane by Lew from Diablew tuning... he does custom tunes via the Diablo sport tuners.

Sorry for the long post.

Not long at all thanks for the info

 

[SlimJim]

You can do longtubes and still pass emissions. Especially if BB does a tune, in which case you can buy headers without cats and have the downstream o2 sensors tuned out if your state doesn't visually inspect for cats. If they do, there’s companies that make longtubes with cats. American a Racing and Kooks make them, both kinda spendy but there are cheaper options.

so BB can tune your vehicle if you go with cat-less long tubes? I know my state doesnt visually check for cats but i wasnt sure if BB would delete the o2 on the tune

 

[Rocket Man]

so BB can tune your vehicle if you go with cat-less long tubes? I know my state doesnt visually check for cats but i wasnt sure if BB would delete the o2 on the tune

Yes.