I have a 99 A4 SS and wanted to know what are the best kind of longtube headers and y-pipe to get with the magnaflow catback? I heard some people have heat problems when getting longtubes and my car is an everyday driver with 79,000 on it. Give me some feedback thanks I LOVE LS1'S!!

 

If your willing to pay alittle more then get ARH Longtubes + Y-pipe, when i got under the car with the headers it took less than 30 seconds per side sliding them up into place ready for header bolts, no cutting/grinding was involved.

 

ARH???????
Pacesetters for bargain
Hooker or Jet Hot for medium price
Kooks, Dynatec and others for higher price/quality

 

American Racing Headers, they are only several years old but they are quickly becoming a big name, search for ARH Headers on google/yahoo, i guarantee you wont find anyone arguing about the install or quality of these headers. If you do some in depth research you can find write-ups on where people even swapped from kooks to ARH and had noticeable gains. Ask about them on ls1tech, everyone who has them is very happy with what they payed for, including me. The headers + catted Y will roughly run you $1500 as a package.

 

Oh yeah, they are 304 stainless steel material also.

 

are slp ones any good, i just want something that will sound good with magnaflow catback and how much ground clearance do you lose?

 

^ NO!! I have SLP's and their ground clearance is TERRIBLE, their collector is SHORT and the performance is middle of the road. Not worth the money at ALL IMO.


Oh, we also have an EXH section..

Here's some pics of the ground clearance. They've been in for about a little over three years now.. They're hard to keep from leaking, as you can tell, which I believe is due to their short collector which is a WHOPPING 3" IF that.

 

I'll have some Mac Midlengths that I'm pulling off my car up for sale in a few days. $200 + shipping.

I think that the cheapest/best quality LTs are the Pacesetters. That's what I'm putting on my car.

Mike

 

im getting some Lt's next week, i was gonna get Jet Hot Lt's with the cat y pipe, i was quoted with shipping $987.90,
seems like a good deal, i wanted Kooks but they just cost to much.

Do u really think the Pacesetters are as good or better than the Jet Hots cause i 'll get them and save $ if thats the case

i just want HP

i just checked , Texas speed has some Pacesetter LTs with their cat y pipe $730
not bad at all,
i had ruled them out cause i guess pacesetter doesnt offer their own cat y pipe, which i def need
i got to stay legal in CT, pain in the ***

 

Yep. Just as good. $389.

 

Honestly it comes down to how much your willing to pay, if your just looking for some decent headers and dont want to spend much pacesetters is going to be your best bet, but there are people out there who like to pay extra for top notch material/product even though you can get a different brand for basically half the price and will still get the job done just fine. The best known names that have been proven over and over again are the 304 stainless steels, which are Kooks, Stainless Works, ARH, and i think QTPs are 304 also, pacesetters are coated headers but there is nothing wrong with them aside from when your installing them you might have to do some cutting/grinding underneath the car.

I payed $1400 for my headers and y-pipe and i believe i got every cent worth of it, I don't have any complaints about the quality/install of the product and i still have basically stock clearance, i havent scrapped my headers yet and i've had them on for a month and a half. You cant tell i have headers unless your coming up a hill to the car and see all the shinys under the car .

 

Unless you are going for every ounce of power or want stainless headers, just buy the pacesetters and call it a day. You will not find a better fitting or better made header for the price. They are a piece of cake to install and they tuck up tight to the floor pan so they have great ground clearance. Don't use the gaskets that come with them as they are junk, just reuse the factory ones that were on the manifolds.

 

I do want stainless headers but just can't afford them right now, I just bought Caretek stage 2 heads, 2x cam , pushrods, injectors and i still need gaskets........and $1200 for install on the heads/cam,
i was gonna stop there, but i cant see puting heads and a cam in the car and not getting headers, plus they will only charge me a extra $100 if i do the headers now,vs $450 later,
plus tune it once........blahblah

so i guess i'll go with the pacesetters, the jet hots look nice but if they aren't worth the extra $ whats the point

has anyone used the Texas Speed cat y pipe with the pacesetter LT's?

 

Yep, I have that y-pipe on my car now along with the hooker catback exhaust and it sounds great ! Some people might say that the y-pipe doesn't fit well but I did not have any problems with mine. Before I even tried to put it on the car I mocked everything up to make sure everything was ok. Then I installed it with the exhaust clamps that came with it ,but I only snugged them down a little to hold everthing in place just in case I had to make adjustments. Once I was satisfied with the fitment I drove the car real easy to the local exhaust shop and had them weld up all the joints. I have taken the y-pipe off several times and never had any problems putting it back on by myself .

 

Nice, i'll have to go with that setup, i have a Borla catback already so it should sound mean
East Side Performance is gonna throw them on when they do the heads/cam
Cool thanks for the help man i'll be saving myself some $.......and i could def use it