bighungrymatt

I want to buy some headers for my 87 5.0

whats the difference between long tube headers and short headers?

also what brands do you recommend?

Goosepoop302

well long tubes if u plan on having a full on drag car, shorties of not, i got bbk ones and i really like em. make sure when u put em in get some nice thick aluminum gaskets from like autozone and the BLUE locktite for the bolts.

88BlueGT

Long tubes have longer tubes and shorty headers are shorter lol pretty self explanatory. If you are producing any numbers under 300-350 I prob wouldnt recommend getting LT's because they will really take alot off of your bottem end. Also, a good set of shorty headers are BBK. If I were looking for a set of shorty headers they would be BBK Equal Length Ceramic Coated Shorty headers. Ceramic coated headers do cost a bit more but its defiently worth it. Check out summitracing.com for prices on the headers. Hope this helped a little bit.

Also, if you run longtubes you will have to run a shorty h pipe to compensate for the extra length in the headers since the stock ones are shorties. And most long tubes (maybe all of them) are not street legal if that matters to you.

Goosepoop302

also people on here say spend like 70$ on stage 8 locking bolts or whatever BUT i didant i just used locktite and dont have issues. after the install make sure to check the bolts after the headers get really hot so the bolts dont back out

Albizo66

longtubes if you want to gain power, and a deeper sound

shorties if you don't want to gain any power, and just get sound

Goosepoop302

thats not totaly true. if you get long tubes your gunna lose low end torque therfor if you dont plan on having over 350 horse they may not be the best, there really is not a differance in power gains with equal and unequal shorties BUT i have herd the equals are alot harder to fit in there. also the ceramic ones will not radiate as much heat as none, and they wont "rainbow"

mrbigshot

longtubes gain torque not lose it

88BlueGT

^^ Cant say I would agree w/ that.

Yes, Longtubes will provide power in the higher RPM range but on a basically stock bolt on 5.0 they will drop your low end... if you get LT's I would make sure you have a steep gear to make up for the loss.


That "cant say I would agree" wasnt to you mrbigshot... it was to albizzo

Goosepoop302

+1 they wont gain you torge on a stock car.

mrbigshot

you wont lose torque if they are small tube, the rpoblem is most long tubes are larger diameter an that will hurt the motors torque production.