Are headers a thing anymore?
- Thread starter ZZman
- Start date
A lot of modern cars have them OEM, hiding under the heat shields.
+1
They usually have integrated cat convertors, making them very expensive and labor intensive to replace.
I'd guess that in an effort to eek out marginal increases in power, efficiency and emissions the OEM's put a lot of effort into exhaust plumbing where previously, except for a few manufacturers, this was primarily addressed by the aftermarket.
Modern engines seem to have designed free flowing exhaust to include (as previously mentioned above) catalytic converters. I’ve played the header game back in the day searching for every ounce of horsepower and contending with burnt ignition wires/boots, exhaust leaks, excessive tinny sounding exhaust, suspension and ground clearance issues, and super heat increases under the hood. The pitfalls of attempting to achieve high performance on street driven cars. I’m now a believer of using stock manifolds for the street. Most likely the 20+ horsepower gained from headers isn’t recognized until the engine is at the top of the rpm range. Not useful on the street. JUST MY OPINION…
It's mostly the consumers seeking extra high horsepower from their cars. I see lots of headers on Corvette's and Camaro's. They are very expensive and many times a tune is utilized to gain more HP. Usually the headers are backed with low restriction cats or mufflers.
For turbo, yes, if you're going with a custom turbo. But for after the turbo, yes... but you're tampering with emissions controls, so it is getting increasingly harder to do, and get a tune for it.
Even the EPA is now cracking down on Cobb tuning for example.
Back in the day, high performance headers made an improvement because the OEM headers weren't tuned or optimized. These days, they are. The OEM headers on my 2014 Mazda 3 are a work of art: mandrel bent, long tube design, which Mazda did in order run 87 octane gas at 13:1 compression without detonation.
Doug Thorley makes (made?) headers for my VQ40's - if you want to call the VQ40 modern, although Nissan made it until 2019 and it has more horsepower stock than their new Frontier engine. The Doug Thorley's retained the OEM CAT's and on the Dyno tests they added about 3% - or just under 10HP. A few guys took it upon themselves to see how much more HP they could coax out of a mostly stock VQ40 and found freeing up the exhaust post cat's actually added more HP than the headers.
I think headers would help in a situation where you could get rid of the cats and do a custom tune - ie off road / race trim, etc - but for use where you need to retain emissions I don't think there is much use.
I think headers would help in a situation where you could get rid of the cats and do a custom tune - ie off road / race trim, etc - but for use where you need to retain emissions I don't think there is much use.
Sure, but mods like that are often illegal under EPA and smog rules.
A good set of headers is always more efficient than a manifold especially in an NA engine.
IF your rig isn't tuned I agree. Pump that crap back into your own cabin. Especially an old carb motor.
If it is you wont smell much difference.
My injected big blocks have no cats and run super clean.
That's funny you mentioned the burning wires. My wife bought me a candle that smells like burning rubber. They also had race gas smelling ones. I asked the guy if they had "essence of accel plug wires burning on hooker hedders" as a candle.
A lot of modern stuff has the exhaust manifold built into the cylinder head. The exhaust exits the head through one or two collectors.
Greatly helps to get a catalytic converter up to temp, great for adding a turbo for quick response like a T3/T4. Loved 4-2-1 header on 90s Hondas with Apexi Exhaust.
They’re still out there.
Small block Chevy V-8's sure did wake up with headers and quality exhaust, you are correct about exhaust leaks (cheap headers) and melted plug wires however.
