I have a 95 LT1 with an SLP intake, injectors, and an Edelbrock muffler and I am looking for some headers that I can just bolt on with no further modifications to the exhaust system. My cat. converter is still installed.

I am looking for the best bang for the buck with very little hassle.
Which headers do you guys recommend?
What is the difference between short, mid, and long tube headers?

Thanks for any help.

 

I'd probably look into pacesetter short tubes if I was you. They have a good bang for your buck.

Short tube or shorties bold up to your existing exhaust system but don't provide a great increase in HP.

Mid tubes provide more HP but are generally more expensive.

Now Long tube headers or LTs and are most cars either run or want to run. They require the cats to be relocated and generally will give you clearance issues. They provide the most HP gains over any other setup.

 

Depending on how far you plan to mod your car, I would atleast go mids or LT. I originally went SLP shorties then wished I had gone LT's. Will loose ground clearance though.

 

http://eyeoutthere.tripod.com/headers.html is old with a bunch that are no longer made but is a good list of what is/was available for 93-95.

Think you are a dual cat car (CA M6 I think is only single cat in 95) so keeping stock cats and exhaust, you are looking at shorties. Single cat can use the mid- length as you get a new cross-over pipe that bolts to the single cat.

Everyone says the shorties don't do much but they have to be better than the cast iron manifold. I have the SLPs (I converted from single cat to dual cats on the theory that my emissions will be lower here in CA) which are a tri-Y with 1-3/4 tubes; not sure if that is better or worse than the 4-1 with 1-5/8 which all of the other shorties are. I can get at all the plugs easily with the exception of number 2, which you can't get at with the stock manifold either.

 

So if installing LT's on a completely stock dual-cat, what would I be in for? would the stock cats just have to be moved up?

 

My Pacesetter LT Y-Pipe goes from the collectors all the way back to just about the drive shaft tunnel. Your stock CAT(s) probably wont physically fit (inlet/outlet size and shape, diameter, length, etc). You will need to cut the Y-pipe and put in two smaller cats one on each side of the Y. Mine is a '94 (single cat) and the cat is actually a welded integral part of the stock Y-pipe setup, could not use it at all.