ok, semi-long story time.

I dropped my Y-pipe a year ago to gut my cat, and in the process snapped off 2 of the studs that connect the y-pipe to the exhaust manifolds. One on each side. I drilled out the studs and replaced em with a nut and bolt. The drivers side seems fine now, but the passenger side is leaking...I've tried everything, and I reduced the leak somewhat but can't get it to totally go away. It's irritating as hell and probably not too good for the car...there's wires running past there that are prolly gettin burnt too.

Only way I can think of to fix it is put on a new exhaust manifold, with all 3 studs intact. But if I'm gonna go to that much trouble, I might as well install headers. I plan to eventually install longtubes, prolly the JetHot ones, maaaaybe AS&M. But by the time I buy headers, a y-pipe, gaskets, bolts, OVC wires, possibly an impact wrench to make things easier, and all the other little odds and ends I'm lookin at $1k-$1200. I can't afford that at the moment, prolly won't be able to for at least a year or 2...I'm putting as much money as possible towards other stuff...paying off credit cards/cars and buying a house.

I've been looking in the classifieds here and on ebay, and it looks like I could possibly get a used set of shorties, y-pipe, and offroad pipe for $300 or less. If I sell em when the time comes to get long tubes, I should be able to get close to what I paid for em, since I bought em used too. At the worst I'll be out $100 or so.

I'm not really at all concerned with plug access, my plugs are fresh and by the time they need changed again I should have longtubes on there. So for $300ish now, at least $200 of which I can get back by selling em later, would it be worth the trouble of installing shorties to cure this god awful exhaust leak, sound a lil better, and be a lil quicker til I can afford longtubes? Or should I get a soup can and a couple exhaust clamps and fix my leak redneck style?

 

It's a big hassle changing headers. I would suggest doing it right the first time.

 

I can't afford to "do it right" right now, and won't be able to for a good while. But this exhaust leak is doing horrible things to what's left of my sanity . I've read all about how much fun headers are, but I think I'd almost rather do a monthly header install than listen to the "foopfoopfoop" that sounds like a piece of paper stuck in a fan all the time

 

It's a pain to do headers, but you are doing damage to the motor by leaving that leak unchecked.

I say go for it.

 

Just go ahead and get the shorties for now. Like you said, you can always sell them later on of you get some LT's. Who knows you might like the shorties and not want to change.

 

Plenty of people are making over 400 RWHP on shorties, as for "doing it right the first time" give me a break, shorties are fine.

IMO "doing it right" consists of protecting the plug wires (I have 1200º boots), and making sure they dont leak. Do yourself a favor and make sure to investigate which headers are for you, if plug access is important and so on.

 

I say do it. You'll get rid of your problem, plus you'll have the experience of putting on a set of headers which will come in handy when you're ready to "do the job right."

 

what Mudge said.

Theres nothign wrong with Shorty headers, hell the fastest bolt on LT1's in GMHTP magazine are running shortes. I picked up a set of SLP stainless shorties for $250 used, and they work great!

 

I have some SLP dual cat shorties for sale...

 

I had to make that choice too shorty's or LT's well i took the short road because my car is lowered 1.5 inches .So LT's wouldnt be good for my set-up just look at my SIG that's with MAC's and there not done tuning yet either the car still has more HP left to gain ....

So go for it...you will be happy

 

someone told me the difference between shorties and long tubes is only about .2 sec in the 1/4.

i got eibach pro kit and didn't want the scraping so i went w/ shorties. it's good for now. w/ cat-back it's much better than the stock manifolds. sotp

 

.2 difference, what are you on? maybe if you are stock in the 14's. Not when you hit 13's it's more like .1 on streets. Also the thing about hurting your motor--i would have to say it is not hurting your motor at all! What do you think a cutout is????? What do dragsters run??--open headers I went with SLP shorties 1 3/4 in primarys. I am pleazed so far, but haven't been to the track since. O yea and do you plan to install these yourself?? If you do i listen to this>>>>"DO NOT BREAK AN EXHAUST MANIFOLD BOLT" if a bolt is tight, rock it back and forth........I borke on and had to have the head pulled by the dealer....$$$$. Glade its over with now! Shorties are good is you don't want to run 600rwhp and by then you will need a 4inch exhaust...lol

 

supposedly some dyno tests conducted by some members here showed that LT's really only start getting a decent gain in the 450RWHP area and above...so if your going to be making that kind of power at some point then go with LT's. Personally I'm gonna stop in the 400RWHP range, so I don't really see much to gain from the added cost of LT's.

 

The difference is:

A. He's got an enhaust leak before an O2 sensor, which is probably causing him to run rich on that side.

B. Open headers are one thing, an exhaust leak that close to the exhaust port on the head runs the risk of burning a valve. A cutout is far enough downstream to not matter.

 

yeah, I do think I'm definitely running rich, my gas mileage is down somewhat since the exhaust leak started. However, I dropped 2/10 off my 1/4 mile, I ran a 13.7 last night, and haven't made any changes since my previous best of 13.9 with a similar 60'

Oh well...anyone have some shorties ya wanna sell cheap? (I'll check the for sale section and post in "wanted" too)