What kinda gains will pace setter long tubes give me? It is either long tubes or gears and i figure going from a 2.73 to a 3.73 will give me about .5 better quarter mile times i was wondering how close would headers would be to that.

 

i know you want long tubes but i have a 112 mi.on my 96z m6 bone stock at 2200' the car ran 14.6 i put on my slp shorties and c5 18s in the rear went 14.1.. i added a better cai the altitude for this night was 2760' i ran 13.9.a fellow club member has a 97 ta 3.23s,ws6 17s drs,52mm,alum.drive shaft,pcm tune and hooker long tubes and his fastest run was a 14.1 so with a stock motor,cam and heads long tubes have not proven to be worth it!now cam,poted heads etc.then lts come into play......

 

Figure on ~30 rwhp for headers/catback. 20 from the headers, 10 from catback.

 

What about the Y-pipe Spinner?..5? maybe?

 

Without headers? Stock dia Y pipe still flows better then a catback so I dont imagine it would make a huge difference.

 

Just recently I had to replace my stock cat and got a glimpse of the stock Y pipe right at the "Y" part where the two pipes come together into 1. It looked REALLY restricted up there, I have no idea really how much HP you would gain, but from what I saw It made me want to replace it

Basically the left and right side pipes at the join had the bigger center pipe slid over them. The left and right pipe ends were jutting out a good bit leaving what looked like a fairly small are for the exhaust to flow through. I would have imagined that the pipes would at least be cut so they matched up perfect at the joint but it was cleary not that way

 

You will get a lot more "bang for the buck" with the gears than with headers.

Rich

 

I would go with gears over headers as well. I went from 3:42s to 4:10s instead of headers. Definitly a good choice.

 

Gears are alot of fun. And so were headers. My vote is for mid's, i had pacesetter lts and switched them out for mac mids. I couldnt tell a difference and my ground clearance is alot better and the install was 10x easier.

 

id say headers - but i am different - i dont necessarily want speed first, id rather have sound since thats what people will notice - but if u race or head to the track a lot, go for the gears

 

I gained 30-35 rwhp from headers and a catback on the dyno.(MAC mids and Hooker catback) The car is a heck of a lot more fun to drive. My hesitation with gears is how much driving I do at 70 mph+. I do a lot of interstate/highway driving, and gears could make that not nearly as enjoyable.

My gains at the track, just from the headers and catback were:
0.6 seconds
4 mph

Dan

 

Do the gears first. And be sure to get a tune with it. I would go with ION from madz28.com .

Those 2.73's are just horrible. And will hold you down. The car felt like a whole new animal after the switch from 2.73's to 3.73's. But without the tune, you will have problems because of the stock shiftpoints. So I would talk to Ion and get the gears with a tune for gears and the normal good stuff he does with a bolt on tune.

Long tube headers and free flowing exhaust reall made a difference in my car, but if I didn't have my 3.73's there is no way I would be running what I am running now at the track.

Mike

For the record, I'm running 3.73 richmond 2-series gears.

 

I was dissapointed in my gains from 3.73's. I though i would drop 1sec with the 3200stall and 3.73's....nope droped .5 with the TC and gears....pretty bad when you should gain .5 from just the TC. I mean they felt great....seat of the pants, but didn't perform. I believe it to be of another problem though. I think my springs are junk. It's definately in the valvetrain, or valves, but it's not making the power up top. It's the only thing that makes sense.....cut 1.78 60 and run a 13.567 1/4. Headers where great, i lost e.t. due to traction issues had too much torque for street tires i was using. I say you can't go wrong with either, but headers make car sound way better.That is the only double advantage to headers.