You're joking right?

 

Some of us aren't made of money.

In reality, headers are NOT cheap - they are overpriced, but you are paying for design/manufacturing that few people are able and more importantly willing to do (especially for a low demand).

I'm anxious to see what comes of this.

SQ

 

I think the thing to try is a low-buck "port-match" of the factory manifold followed by a trip to the "Extrude Hone" folks. That will max out the flow of the factory manifolds yet retain a factory look and keep the costs down. This process works really well on "resto-mod" muscle cars. It avoids all the cost/fit/noise/leaks issues associated with headers. A decent factory manifold moded in this fashion will make almost as much power as a set of headers. The headers don't really show much gain until high RPMs very close to red-line. There are some exceptions; some engines have just horrible factory manifolds. The M-Benz 3.2 set look pretty decent !

Slim

 

Porting and Extrude Honing won't work on these headers. They are made of stamped stainless steel and lazer welded together. You can't port something made of sheet type metal. You'll end up putting hole in them. If you tried Extrude Honing 1 of 2 things might happen. The material would just get squeezed though and no change would occur because of the already smooth interior finish. Or the pressure would be so great that you would literally split the manifold at the seams.

 

Race headers are indeed tuned to their particular engine. Several engine parameters are needed to build a set of "tuned" headers.

Now taking a look at those Supersprint headers you will notice that they aren't equal length. That is most always the case on a "tuned" header design.

So to argue that "You can't just take 3 pipes, collect them into one", sure you can and it would make a great street header (see Supersprint design). Anytime you remove turbulances (by utilizing individual tubes) and increase the scavaging (by adding a true collector) you will increase exhaust flow which in turn creates more horsepower. But if you wanted the most out of a header a "tuned" header such as the ones that HDDP had built are the way to go.

Folks I can't believe we are even debating whether headers will produce more horsepower. This has been the case since headers were first made. Come on!

 

not the same company, I believe it was these guys, maybe they just weren't experienced at header tuning, seems they don't carry many parts for the IS300 anymore. http://www.skunk2.com/exhaust/index.php

 

"The M-Benz 3.2 set look pretty decent !"

the point i am getting at here is that the same set is used on the AMG 3.2 and that is not pretty decent...

 

Have not seen much of HDDP's Header set... i am sure he has many well worked out mods on his car though after all...

 

Msheredy,

I understand that you may gain a few ponies by taking away as much restriction as possible.

My point was that it may not be worth the hassle of fabricating, measuring, etc.

My other point was that the ones that are for sale are NOT tuned, they are a simple tubular header made to take the place of the stock one - which WILL help, but I'm not sure if it will help enough to cost $2800.00 (for me at least).

For that price you may as well go with the Renntech kit.

SQ

 

well first off the headers work with the renntech kit to maximize gains... I mean it would be great if we can keep paying $3,000 and continuously gaining 50 hp, but you can only do this once... unfortunately...

second I am not sure what you mean by "tuned" headers? long tube headers? if that is what you are talking about quiet a few over on mbworld slkworld and benzworld have tried to do this only to come back with nothing stating that their fabricators said it is impossible due to lack of space...

 

I would much rather have you guys fab up some catalytic straight pipes, I have the o2 simulators ready to plug in.
Lets start with the easier mods first then move into the headers.

 

Guys ~ just wondering whether the Supersprint headers for the C32 or SLK32 would fit a Crossfire Limited. Thanks in advance.

 

Any headers that fit the SLK32 should fit, but the gains will be very questionable...

Headers of the C32 will not fit, especially the long tubes...

 

Well if this is indeed the case, and because of their stainless steel construction, we can't port match or hone em out, then headers would most assuredly be the way to go. There should be a very noticeable H.P. increase too I would think.
Now if somebody can just fabricate a set that didn't cost an arm and a leg, this would probably be one of the best performance bargains for a Limited and Base engine.

 

The guy with the SLK32 who is having the headers built by floored fab should be dynoing the system shortly. I mentioned this before in another post that his car is pullied & tuned so the numbers aren't going to be from a stock car. Also the shop is fabricating a completely new exhaust for the car w/low cell count catalytic converters. We should be able to rely on a percentage gain though I would think?

 

can't you bend the matting area of the stock manifold so that it doesn't protrude into the exhaust flow?
use some kind of air hammer to smooth things out?

 

Best performance bargains would be more applicable to the supercharged to the car... I don't see it making much gains on a N/A car...

 

we won't be able to rely on percentage gains, because his pullied supercharger creates an even bigger problems in the exiting of the exhaust gasses... so the upgrade will be much more noticeable to someone who is already running higher boost than to someone running stock, but why even do this upgrade before doing the pullies and ecu as regardless the matter the pullies and ecu will give a greater performance increase...

 

Sidez, out of the nearly 100 cars that I've owned over the years, I've never owned a Turbo, or Supercharged car, so I can't comment on how well headers will improve a "puffed" engine.
I was basing my assumption on what Msheredy said about the Arizona company, "Floored Fabrication" discovering that the oem manifolds actually "shroud" the exhaust ports. I would think that fact alone would cause enough obstruction to hinder good flow characteristics. That's why I think a nice port matched set of headers would probably wake up our "na" engines.
Out of all the cars I've owned, only three had headers on them, and compared to the same cars without headers, they seemed to have a distinct advantage.
There are only 2 sets of factory oem exhaust manifolds that I'm familiar with that even come close to matching what a set of headers can do. Those were the original equipment manifolds that came on the Mopar MAX Wedge engines, and the manifolds AMC used on some of their V8's starting with the 1971 model year. But even as good as they were, headers were still an improvement.

 

What I meant by this was that we couldn't rely on actual horsepower gains because of his mods. Instead calculating the percentage of gain we could apply that to our engines.