I am about to sell my dual exhaust setup becuase it wont fit. I have been running an x-pipe with nothing behind it for a while. I figured that was safe. However, will it be just as safe to run straight headers?

 

I can recall a guy once told a story on here how he was heading to the exhaust shop to get his y-pipe fabbed up to his LT headers when about a mile from the place his car went up in flames. Apparenly the fuel lines melted under the immense heat and he lost the car.

I did however drive with open headers to the exhaust shop just like that guy and MANY others but this was on a 55 mph highway so there was enough air moving around to keep things cool. Id be a little concerned about driving it in slow moving traffic that way.. especially in the summer heat.

 

It will not want to run, and will be hard on your o2s. Some people think that cool air / little back preasure will bend exhaust valves. Possible.

If we are talking a short distance, it won't kill anything. If you are driving 20 miles 1 way to work for the next 3 months. I wouldn't do it.

Probably run a lot better if you forced it to stay in open loop, the o2s will go crazy with open long tubes.

 

Hmm, I guess I'll stick with the idea of buying a new exhaust first in that case.

 

It will be perfectly fine. Just watch the fuel lines, wrap them in some heat resistant material.

 

I ran longtubes through a off road Y pipe wide open for about a month (not my choice) with no problems. This was in the summer, with mostly stop and go traffic. I just got so sick of the drone, and how loud it was. Its a great way to **** off your neighbors.

 

Law enforcing officers say: It's not okay to run open longtubes.. lmao Something about noise polution

 

I like my car to be loud somewhat. I think open headers are too much, though. That's almost unbearable.
-Goose

 

Yea, I can't stand the setup the way it is (longtubes and x-pipe). Too damn loud.

 

its really debatable.... my buddy has an lt1 vette and we put TPiS LTs and y pipe on and his car ran badass for a few days then he drove to an hour on the freeway and now his car runs like total crap. He thinks he could have burnt his valves. When i tried to drive my car after my LT install to the muffler shop as soon as my car warmed up it would cut out and buck violently. the only explanation i could come up with was fresh air was hitting the O2s and messing things up. As soon as i got the Ypipe fabbed up it ran fine

 

My car ran like complete crap with open longtubes. A major power loss. I put the y-pipe and the rest of the exhaust on and now it screams.

Rob

 

Long tube typically have the O2 sensors in the collectors. Run with nothing bolted to the collectors, and the O2 sensors see air that mixes with the exhaust gasses, and totally screws up the A/F ratio, running pig rich - maybe rich enough to wash down the cylinder walls and damage the engine.

If you're running an open loop tune, it won't matter, but if your PCM runs closed loop, it could really screw things up.