+1 on all that

put lt hookers on my 289

holy hell it became a torqey little bastard at the low end. shorties are nice if your outta room and dont wanna deal with clearance issues but lt's will almost always flow better

 

shortie are made for more torque and long tubes are more horse power. think of it this way, compare a dragster with nascar. the dragster has shorter headers than nascar because of the taller intakes and vice versa. i could be wrong but there is a standard length from intake to exhaust, its like 54 1/2 in, for max performance. so basically what im trying to say is that you really shouldnt run long tubes with the 5.0 style manifold, it defeats the pourpose.
just my .02

 

Low end torque is produced and increased by the use of smaller diameter tubes in the headers. A 1 5/8" header tube for each cylinder dumped into a 2 1/2" exhaust pipe will have tons of low end torque.

 

sorry to bring back a dead thread, but was wondering what hp i would have, justmade some decisionsand wondered if these wouldmake a difference
85 5.0 HO motor
bored .30 over
stock heads
torker 289 intake
edelbrock 600 carb
huge hei distributor
AC delete
hedman longtubes/ blackjack longtubes
custom h-pipe or x-pipe
cherry bomb extreme mufflers (single chambers) dumped

 

All the high dollar parts in the world won't do a thing for horspoweruntil you get the timing and jets dialed in - and that's best done on a dyno.
Jim

 

The biggest problem with your engine are the heads. Naturally aspirated I doubt you'd be able to break the 250hp mark on your engine in street trimregardless of cam/induction/exhaust. 86's had the E6 heads with a crappy shrouded heart shaped chamber, they don't flow worth anything. If it has E7 heads you're a bit better off but you will have a hard time getting much past 280hp at the flywheel with the right setup. If the heads are stock E5's...bleh.And get rid of that Torker manifold, they suck for the street unless you have a lot of head/cam/gearing(which you don't). You'll make more power everywhere on a mild engine with a good dual plane than you will with that Torker, especially with stock heads. Your engine will be a dog otherwise, you have way too much manifold, and way too much carb(you need less carb with a single plane manifold, especially on an engine that mild), so your engine won't perform worth anything because the parts are all mismatched. If you put a nice Weiand or Edelbrock low rise dual plane then you'll be ok with that carb and the engine will run much better everywhere. Regardless though, with a stock cam and heads you're not going to see much over about 230hp at the flywheel(if that)and you'll get whipped by a lot of the 4 banger rice rocket cars, so don't exepct anything spectacular, but it'll run well. Basically without good heads you're dead in the water for performance. I know where you can get some new bare GT40P heads if you don't wanna spend the moolah for aluminum ones. I'm just being realistic with you, it ain't that easy to make power

 

just to clarify, E5TE heads are the same as E7TE heads. its the E5AE heads that are crappy due to a larger chamber (the same as D8OE).

using the E6SE heads, and a ford aluminum 4 bbl intake from a 83 GT i slapped in a summit 218/228 .471/.471 flat tappet cam and that thing would destroy the tires with a ford/holley 600 i pulled from a early 80's 351w powered van and a 25.00 b&m stage II shift kit. it fell flat on its face @ anything over 5k rpm but from the line it was a monster. oh yeah, this was using stock exhaust manifolds and single exhaust too

 

i'm not trying to mismatch parts this is just the way it came. it's hard to buy parts when you work in fast food. i don't know what the guy we bought the motor from was thinking. so my best bet would be to find some gt-40 heads then right? i'm not trying to be the fastest thing around, with all the newminivans and sedans, and srt-4s(GRR![:@])now coming out stock with 230hp and up i gave up along time ago, i just want it to be fun and have respectable performance. i'd really like to be in the low 13sec range. that would be good enough. other forums have said i should already be running low 14s high13s the way it is. but everyone seems to think different things, i don't know who's right anymore
by the way, i have 3.55 gears and my car barely weighs more than 2600 pounds minus driver

 

Well, you're light with gears so that's a big help. As far as performance and $$$ I know how that is, trust me. If you want some decent heads for cheap you can always try to scavange some GT40 heads, or P heads(which will require modification of your headers or new headers) from something like an Explorer from a junkyard. Or try Ebay for a set. You're gonna need a different manifold though, Torkers aren't all that great unless you have a heavy breather, and you don't. For a manifold, again you can try to find a factory 4bbl from a junkyard. Even with E6 or E7 heads you'll have ok performance, like my77stang said, lotta torque down low right off the line, but not much top end, so it'll drive well on the street, but it won't really be all that fast. Your best bet for cheap power, a good roller cam, and some junkyard heads/4bbl intake and you can make 300+hp at the crank. As far as low 13's....with some GT40 heads in a car as light as your's with those gears if you have good suspension it can be done fairly easily

 

it's just the p heads that requiremodding to the headersright? and with the gt 40 heads can i use valve covers i've bought for my engine or do i need different ones?