Are JBA cat4ward shorties any good?

[Simon1]

Originally Posted by jdmcbride I like the JBA shorties for a few reasons... 1. I noticed more power down low in the RPM band (butt dyno). 2. Sounds great; even with the stock catted h-pipe. Exhaust pulses are smoothed out and WOT screams! 3. Looks 100% better under the hood than with the rusty stock exhaust manifolds. Definitely worth the price IMO and you stay legal. You also won't throw a code with shorties as you sometimes get with long tubes. I agree with everything above. I also choose the JBAs because their metal is slightly thicker than other companies. Thought they might last longer. The stock gasket can be reused without any issues.

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[stealth_GT]

I gained a consistent drop of .1 on my 1/4 but lost 1mph.

I was very consistent at 13.4@103 for the entire summer, then it dropped to 13.3@102.

I could get it down to 13.2@102 but the launch has to be spot on.

Daily driving and manually shifting (auto) is when I feel it the most though, smoother and appreciable power. Though I'd also consider a high flow catted H/X pipe to get the most gains (+5 additional?)

[S197winstang]

Yeah, there are good especially if combined with other mods like the x pipe mid section and an aggressive axle back setup.

[jahudso2]

According to my accelerometer, I gained ~ 8 hp from installing the jba silver ceramic shorties on my car. They sound much better and keep some of the heat out of the engine bay and they increased my fuel economy by 3mpg on the highway. The thing about high flow catted x-pipe making 20 hp is bull****. I would love to see dyno graphs showing that considering o/r h and x pipes only make 10 hp.

[MadMike1337]

+1 haha i did not gain 20hp from my x pipe. i gained enough to notice it lol

[rivercitymike]

I spoke with a JBA tech rep, and he said that they tested various brands of shorty headers. They only saw a 1 hp difference between them. With that in mind, I got the BBK ceramics because they were cheaper than the JBAs or the FRPPs. Eithe way, the ceramic type shorties improve underhood appearance (the stock manifolds are fugly), cut a few pounds off the car, and improve the exhaust note. And while the hp increase is minimal, the low to midrange torque increase is good. One magazine test showed a 5 hp and 15 tq increase on a n/a GT. BTW, I'm in california, so LTS were not an option.

[white07]

Im gonna tell you that JBAs are great b/c I know the owenrs son.

[impulse GT]

Go with JBA over BBK. Just a quality thing in my opinion.

As for several of our x-pipe installs making over 20+ that is accurate. These were done on cars with Predator tuners. The car was already tuned with the tuner. we added the x-pipe, and ran the car on the dyno and re-tuned with the addition of changing some parameters once the x-pipes are installed. So the 20 wheel is a real number. Plus we tune on a Dyno Dynamics eddy-current full load control so the numbers cannot be fudged. Part of the benefit of installing any high flow cats is what you can do with the tune and the fuel trims once those are installed. Ask any tuner, not just an installer. 20 wheel from an x-pipe is possible.

I love how we have installed and dyno'd tons of JBA's and other headers and x-pipes but then some "seat of his pants" forum dork disputes what we say.

But like everyone says, 90% of the time the stock gaskets are reusable.