im trying to get the most gains (power and MPG) for the least amount of cash. it looks like there are some good deals on these forums for some of the aftermarket headers. would these bolt up to the rest of the stock exhaust. would i still see decent gains if it was mated to the stock exhaust? or is it still pretty much worthless unless you do the whole exhaust.

just looking for opinions

also, anyone have a sound clip of this kind of setup? im trying to stay as quiet as possible.

 

aftermarket headers will still produce decent gains w/ the stock exhaust system. i'm running the mmw header with the stock exhaust, and the noise has changed just a bit, but i could feel a bigger pull in higher revs. u'll probably lose a bit of low-end torque due to the lack of backpressure, it wouldn't affect you that badly.

 

how much backpressure could really be lost if the rest of the stock exhaust is still there.

those that are saying no, why?

 

u won't lose that much, conisidering you're only taking off a small pre-cat, and replacing weirdly designed pipes of the stock header with better welded together aftermarket pipes. u'll still have that cat on the midpipe, and the huge muffler on the stock axleback. and people say to get the aftermarket exhaust with headers because a lot of headers of a rasp problem, and the exhaust/midpipe could drown out some of the rasp. but the rasp differes completely on the brand.

 

Why not? Alot of people do exhaust without header and still make good power! Go for it!!!!!

 

interesting. will aftermarket headers bolt up directly? with no other modifications?

 

i want to do header without exhaust. if that makes your statement any different

 

do a search kid.

 

i actually like the sound of the oem exhaust witrh an aftermarket header, you can find it in the sound sticky...

and 2azfeboost your not much older btw

 

i run the mmw header w/ stock exhaust too. i like the set up you can feel the difference from the header and its not as loud as if you combined with aftermarket exhaust. but if you run the header w/o exhaust it sounds really good (my opinion)

 

I vote no, but I am curious on how that's going to sound. Headers + tC is a known combination to result in rasp, so I wonder how that's going to sound matched up to a more restrictive/muffled system.

 

do you have any sound clips of yours? i listened to the one in the sound sticky but i want to hear how bad the rasp is (he said it isnt raspy at WOT just during normal driving, which he didnt do in his video)

 

Wow, thanks, quality post. You just opened up my whole world.

 

maybe i should do a sound clip of my system one of these days,..

 

the more the better thats for sure. there are so many different set ups its hard to tell exactly what it will sound like without actually installing all of it.

 

Power and MPG do not go together. A header only shifts the power band from low end to high end, and sounds like ****. I wouldn't put a dime into one, but that's just me. A V8 is another story, but not on a 4-banger.

 

I did the whole thing in one shot! Mmmm I can feel the power all the way across the HP range! Dyno coming soon!

 

but power and MPG do go together when you cut emissions out of the equation.

 

and exhausts arguably increase your MPg(especially since its "free" HP

thats why, if you dont care about sound levels(and i dont if im in all hp mode) then just run open headers

 

I ran my car with stock exhaust and MR header for a short time. It was really quiet, but I still got really bad rasp out of the set up.