I was looking into gettin Kooks 1 5/8-13/4 stepped Lts with a 3 inch outlet and mid pipe with 3 inch inlet and 2 1/2 inch outlet to meet with my bassani cb. I have an 01 cobra without a sc. I'm already saving for the sc but want to be ready for it and get the most out of it. Do you think that is to much exhaust for my na svt or should I be ok.

 

Do yourself a favor and for the same price as the kooks go with ARH. Kooks uses a Slip-Fit design which makes then prone to leak. ARH is one solid piece, I went with ARH and I love them. If you plan on going SC like you said go with the 1 3/4 header, scratch the idea of the 1 5/8. Here are some pics of my ARH Longtubes and Catted X, prob the best welds I've ever seen.

 

wow those are some really nice welds. So you are saying to go with a straight 1 3/4 inch, but will that work on my car right now. It is probably going to be quite a few months before I get the blower. I just got my car dynoed and don't want to lose to much power. I have just heard so many stories about not enough backpressure and losing a lot of power.

 

^^Yea the ARH have better welds then the kooks and have no chance of leaking. I bought the whole ARH LT/Catted X package from lethalperformance.com

I also went with the EGR delete and Ford Racing Stage 8 locking header bolts.

1 3/4 will fit fine on your car with it being N/A rite now.

 

Headers on a modular are a waste of money unless you're over 600 rwhp. We've dyno'd about 100 cobras before and after bolt-ons, power adders and such...and you won't notice any gain until you get up in the power levels. I remember one day we added a set of Kooks 1 3/4 LT's and X-pipe to an 04 Cobra with a whipple. car only picked up 1 HP and lost 3 ft.lbs. This was with no changes to the tune. That guy spent 1800 bucks on his exhaust. He wasn't very happy.

Your $1000-1500 bucks would be better spent on something else. Sh*t even after you add the blower, you won't make much more than 5 or so HP by switching to LT's. Trust me bro...get something other than headers.

 

what would make be better for my 99 cobra o/r x or catted x?

 

I'm not going to agree with you one this one. I have seen many terminators dyno sheets and been at shops where terminators with basic bolt ons and longtubes added and their was about a 10-12hp gain. On terminators with whipple and KB I have seen upwards of about 16-23. All shops use different dyno and such to see how much power a car is making, so I'm not going to call BS. This topic has been beatin to death time and time again. The fact is shops all over will give different readings of a car hp/tq.

 

I'll agree about different shops producing different #'s. That kind of goes with geography too, 91/93/E85 fuels and such. But you said most cobras have seen gains with bolt-ons AND LT's...how do you know how much power the LT's are adding? The turth is most of the time when people put LT's on, it's in conjuction with other mods and/or a tune. So their data is somewhat skewed in the favor of adding LT's because the LT's are usually the most expensive mod, people justify the purchase by thinking they added the power...when the majority of the time it was the tune (or other bolt-ons) that added the power. All I'm trying to portray is that the +/- 5HP for longtubes is not worth the sometimes $1000+ price tag since you can get the same if not more power with with far less cost.

 

All depends on the sound you like. TX isn't a smog state...yet...so pick a good mid-pipe with removable cats (like Bassani) and try it with both. My personal opinion...I HATED the way my car sounded without cats. Real raspy and tinny sounding...put the cats back on and it sounded mean as it should've. But it's preference bro.

BTW, this was when i had the KB setup on...I don't run cats on my turbo setup.

 

For Example, My buddy has a 03 cobra with:
Catback/intake/port/upper/lower pullie/BF throttle body & plenum/Mafia. He dyoned I believe 500+rwhp or somewhere around their, can't remember. I don't want to give a exact number on his behalf and I ended up giving his false numbers. He just added Kooks 1 3/4 & o/r X and he gained 15rwhp. I was impressed, thats what made me buy my ARH longtubes. We got his car dynoed before and after the headers. He did lose boost thou since switching to longtubes.