I'm about to have my 97 Trans Am WS6 (M6) Worked on. I'm putting a LT4 hotcam, and extreme duty timing set. it already had the LT4 rockers and HD valve springs done a while back. Its a mint car with only 23K miles (no snow rain) I don't want he car to turn into a mess of problems, so are shorty headers worth it? Or should I pick up a set of the extrde honed manifolds off Ebay? What is best for this setup? The car also has a corsa catback and a reprogrammed prom, etc. I saw that the TTS headers are supposed to be the best for fit in the LT1. They are 1-3/4 inch and coated. I just don't want to waste $900 for 5 hp. What gains did any of you guys see with similar setups. any help is greatly appreciated

 

Do a search this topic comes up often. Everyone is gonna tell you to go with headers too. I would.

 

This was on a 96 pontiac transam ws6. here. This guy also has a nice install guide if you were planning on doing it yourself.

I would also vote for the true headers, unless you were going for a sleeper look under the hood. Also, those tts ones do look really nice, but you can pick up some others nice ones that are coated for about 1/2 the price. For example, MAC, SLP, and RKSport all are pretty highly recommended by members of this board.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...926363625&rd=1

This is some pacesetters. Not the best brand but for $100 less then stock ported manifolds. Way better.

 

I got my headers used with a y-pipe for $200 so the deals are out there.(even though I don't know if I got THAT much of a deal).

 

Unless you are trying to stay in a certain race class (probably not with the mods), or are trying to retain a stock look, I would not bother with the extrude honed units. SLP used these on the LT4 cars because they were having trouble getting the advertised numbers while retaining the stock ECM program (due to emissions). One of the SLP techs that worked on the project claims they flow as well as SLP's shorty headers for a 97, but that's got to be the poorest header design available for an LT1 car. My guess is you might gain 5RWHP with the extrude honed units. Tell you what, I'll sell you the ones off my car for $200 and I'll go buy some real headers instead.

 

dont forget that those hp numbers for that link are with a 2.5" ypipe and hi-flow cats.

bolting a pair of headers onto the stock ypipe will not yield as much pwer. honestly that was probably 1/2 the gain, just the ypipe and cats.

go for full headers and ypipe...you won't be sorry