I ran open headers for a week on my car because the shipping company ran behind schedule getting my true duals to me from Lane. I reused 2 of my o2's, and never had any problems. The car ran well with some killer top end compared to my stock exhaust, but lost a little low end. The true duals took care of that though. Indiana is definitely not a smog **** state, and around here cops don't care about loud exhaust. It was fun driving to campus every day and seeing the looks on some people's faces when I had open headers... priceless.

Jason

 

I didn't read the whole post, but yes, you can run open headers if you have your o2s disconnected. This will force the car into open loop and it will use a different table for air fuel ratio. (non o2 dependent) It will set a service engine light, but it will not hurt your car.

With open headers and most of these popular cams including stock, you will most likely lose some torque and maybe HP too. Yes, it's very loud and I wouldn't drive it more than 10 miles or so. (I had to drive mine around and it was pretty bad)

 

Like I said before, I have long tube headers, 2.5" reducers (you only need 3" DUAL exhaust if you make 500+hp), and 18" extensions (18" piece of 2.5" pipe welded to the reducer). Not counting the headers the other stuff will probably set you back $30-$50 depending on where you get your stuff. The extensions help you get back the torque and hp you would lose on a typical open header setup. As for the O2's, I don't know what to tell you, I put my O2's in the same day as the install and it's been almost 20,000 miles without a problem. If you have even more question, I would talk to FastChip. Their website is www.fastchip.com and they have contact phone numbers there. They tuned my car and it is one of the quickest 5.7 LT1's in my town.

 

running open doesn't cause valve problems?

 

Not with long tubes. I just got my pacesetter lts in for my lt1 and have not put them on yet but i ran open headers (longtubes) on my 81 Bronco for almost 2 months and the only problems i had was with the law.


Tim

 

It can cause problems and isn't worth risking it for extended periods of time. Just get to where you need to go, and keep the rpms in a reasonable range. Also, you will notice how many people drive with cell phones. When I had to drive 40 minutes open headers, every nasty glance I got was from a cell phone user - the remaining glances were like "damn....that **** is loud" or they were just plain confused...

ALSO, I did not disconnect O2s or unplug them and they are fine. I do plan on getting new ones however soon as part of my 70k tuneup... but once again, I accelerated VERY slowly and hit a max rpm of 2000-2200

 

My car wouldn't even run with open LT's, it started and ran untill it got warmed up enough to go in to closed loop then the car would just die.

 

Fredmr39...When you drove with open headers did you have a backfire? Just started mine and it backfires when i just barely touch the throttle. Did i just maybe cross a wire?


Tim