LTs vs shorties
 

why does everybody choose the long tube headers over the shortie ones

Because shorties give you pretty much no gain.

if they are the same diameter why dont they work the same

I'm with him^

Long tubes or nothing at all

i have an off road x pipe and i know that the long tubes wont bolt up to it because the x pipe runs up through where the cats were

Yeah, youll have to get a new midpipe.

alright

LT's are better because they let the exhaust flow more freely than shorties, its all in the design

incorrect. The flow has only a very small part in the overall power releasing properties of longtubes.

Long tubes build the scavenging effect of the exhaust system which helps to literally suck out the exhaust gas from the cylinders allowing a clean unpolluted fuel/air charge to enter the combustion chamber outside the presence of transient exhaust gasses. They also flow free-er and provide less backpressure which is good for hp but not usually very good for torque.

Shorties don't do much for us because they don't accentuate the scavenging effect.

Ideally headers should be optimized for the displacement of the motor and the cam&intake. A BIG displacement motor would benefit from shorties over cast manifolds more than a small displacement motor on exhaust volume alone but it would still be better with longtubes of the correct length.

In my unscientific statistics gathering I've noticed that Bassani Mid-length headers are just about the perfect length for 4.6L motors. Equal length shorties are better than plain shorties but still nothing like a good set of mids from bassani or any of the longtube designs.

If you need to understand it more, check out the how stuff works website. They've got cool animations of stuff like this.

lol.. thats what I meant.. I just didnt feel like explaining it lol, nice work

It's the "phetzer valve".

Leave it to R3d to always come through with the technical terms, lol.

But yea, LT's or nothing at all. Now that I think of it, are you able to install shorties a lot easier than LT's or do you still need to drop the Kmember or lift the engine up? I would think you can squeeze in there if you have small enough arms.

It's still going to be a PITA, so why go through all that work for shorties when it takes just as much time and effort to put long tubes in?

O no, I agree that there just simply isn't enough pro's vs. cons to get anything BUT LT's. I very glad I got mine.