Exhaust questions, please help, I'm sick of searching
 

I've been searching for over an hour and can't find the answers I'm looking for, so here it is.

Car: 2000 Mustang GT 5 speed.

Are short tube or mid tube headers worth it? I have a magnaflow catback, BBK CAI, BBK Power plus 75mm TB, and a C&L upper intake elbow. I was going to do an x or h pipe, but was wondering if the headers would do much more. What kind of HP gains would I expect with headers vs. the stock manifolds. This is assuming assuming I have the x or h installed with stock manifolds and my magnaflow catback. I basically want to know if it's really worth doing the full exhaust, or if the x or h is good enough. And not that its a huge deal, but would the headers improve the gas mileage at all?

I'll continue further after I find out if you guys think the headers are worth it or not.

TIA

Nick

Hey Nick...Longtube headers are the only ones worth doing for the 2v IMHO. Now whether you pair longtubes to a "shorty" X or H, that is purely your choice. Are longtube headers beneficial over stock manifolds? Hell yes. Regarding gas mileage? I havent the slghtest clue. Hope that helps man.

on a bolt-on gt, youre not gonna gain enough power to make the price and the hastle of longtubes worth doing. Now if you were fully built with heads/cams/intake/blower you might see a decent gain but not gonna gain more than 5-10rwhp on a bolt on car. I think that you would see a gain in gas mileage but not that big of a deal really.

i agree, but i would probably go so far as to say any car.

just get an O/R X or H pipe. and get some 3:73 or 4:10 and call it a day....... for now.

..and some flows 44's

all the above is true, but whether or not you find them to be beneficial as far as hp gains and gas mileage, they still make the car sound a helluva lot meaner!

as a sidenote, people claim that the exhaust is not a choking point, that the intake of the car is, which is both true and false.. while the exhaust may not technically be a choking point on a stock gt, it is on one with enough breather mods to change the exhaust gas output. i can show you pictures of the stockers vs. my LT's and you will quickly be able to see how freakin restrective these things truly are. but, at the end of the day, if you plan on keepin your setup the way it is, theyre probably not worth the money n trouble

I gained like 1-2 mpg with my long tubes, but I also changed out the old rust filed fuel filter at the same time. My car has full exhaust, udp's, and a cai. I had a o/r x pipe that I couldn't tell no difference in the before/after other than sound, and the long tube's and o/r h pipe I can feel the car pulls harder. Nothing huge, but it made a big enough difference that I would call it a good gain over all. Plus it sounds sick at WOT

Wow thanks for all the great responses guys. For starters, I don't ever plan on doing gears, I do a LOT of highway driving (hence me asking about the gas mileage increase) and that would kill me haveing anything but stock gears. I also don't plan on going past a bolt on car.

I just read in another thread that SLP makes a mid pipe that will work with stock manifolds AND headers, if I choose to go that route later. Where can I get that thing at? All I see on summit for my car is one that requires headers. Oh and the sound of headers is also what's kinda pulling me in too haha. I mean sound, power, weight savings, gas mileage... WHY NOT?!

Oh yeah... the labor.

I had this same dilemma last year. From my searching, and I did a lot of it, I decided to just go with a mid pipe and skip the headers. Seemed to be too expensive for the performance/sound gains that were possible (I don't plan to go FI). Btw, I went with a Magnaflow X-pipe and im so glad I did.