a buddy of mine has a set of hooker long tubes for $180 im thinking of buying them is this a good deal or no? He said there brand new never been attached to a car

and also im having a shop put them on as the car is lowered so i can barely get a jack any tips to get a little more clearance for bottoming out? im thinking on having them fabricate a custom y pipe

 

Are they long tubes, shorties, or mids? I don't know what shorties or mids go for, but the cheapest long tubes run $300 new. Do they provisions for emissions? Do you need them to have said provisions to pass inspection?

If they're long tubes and you're having a shop do it, expect a nice bill. Passenger side is cake. Driver side can be a pain, mostly because it requires parts to come out to get it in. Easiest way I can think of to prevent scraping and such is put stock height springs in.

 

there long tubes and i dont they have emissions i dont have emissions test. I was going to do away with the AIR and EGR taken out as there failing anyway. Tune would be next month to do a basic tune.

I would attempt to it myself but where the car is low and where i live i dont have the right equipment (jackstands, low profile jack, or a lift) and plus im a big guy so.....

Big people + under low cars = a bad day

 

From what I read the hooker long tubes have the lowest dyno numbers of all the long tubes. I have seen guys replace them with other long tubes. Is that what your buddy is doing? The price seems about right. If I remember right the drivers side is installed from under the car and the car needs to be high enough to stand the header on end so at least a mid height lift or really tall jack stands .

With headers the longer the tubes the higher the RPM range they help the most in. The reason long tubes show higher Dyno number is because they help at the RPM range everyone looks at because that is max HP. But a mid length header would add more HP at say 3500 RPM then a long tube but the mid length would show little increase at 5400 RPMs. So the question what RPMs do you want more power in? Long tubes cost more, hang lower and they require some custom work on the exhaust. Unless you plan on Draging the car at the strip or running over 5000 RPM in you daily drive mid length headers could be a better option.

 

save your money for some pasesetters coated with y pipe for around 6 bills.

 

well i did my searching and long tubes they all accomplish the same thing more HP just some do it better then others.

im sure pacestter is probably better than hooker i know that kooks is the best but i dont have that money nor do i have 6 bills laying around.

right now i have BBK shorties so any long tube or mid tube is going to be a improvement. i was just wondering if im saving money or wasting money.

 

The question you need to ask yourself is. Is there any point in time when having 5-10 more HP at 5500 RPM is going to help you? Are you going to drag race it at the track with any kind of regularity?

That may be important to you, The only way I would pay the Kooks price would be if I was planning on a 383 and a ton of other upgrades. I am cheap and I want a good HP per dollar ratio if I am building something. I would think with shorties already on the car CAM first, Then Heads/intake then long tubes.

 

well i do plan on doing a 383 build just at a slow place as im on a tight budget so i can order parts slowly instead of being without a car 8+ months.

I know the headers can be re used is why i wanted long tubes.

im more looking for the most bang for my buck as money is tight i have to be choosy about what mods i can put in and how long my down time will be because i dont have the tools or the know how to do it all. So i have to pay a garage to do most of my stuff.

as for my OP i know "shorties" are nothing but fancy stock exhaust manifolds and headers are genuinely the first mod people make besides CAI and catback which i have never did much research on mid's if there is a write up on mids and pros and cons of mid's i can research plaease link me

Thanks (dont mean to be a pain just a little confused is all and im sure we all started somewhere being a first v8 for me and hopefully the only v8)

 

one of kooks biggest thing with me was clearance, pretty much same as stock. i am lowered about an inch and very seldom do i scrape on speed bumps and such. not the exhaust anyways, the tunnel mount for the torque bar is usually what hits.

 

Sorry I can not link you the information on header length. It is from what I was taught from a guy that custom made header long before the internet showed up.

The concepts are pretty simple. You have to understand how a stream of fast moving air can cause a vacuum, like how a sand blaster sucks in sand. Second you have to understand that exhaust gases exiting the engine are still expanding. When an engine is running higher RPMs the gases move out of the cylinder faster. This means the point where the expanding gases reach their highest speed gets farther from the engine. Lets call the collector the siphon point. As one cylinder fires it creates a vacuum sucking pressure from the other tubes. like a sand blaster sucks sand (this is also known as scavenging). In a "perfect" header the collector would start off very close to the head and move farther away as the RPM's go up.

The original manifold not only lacks the scavenge capability at any RPM they force the exhaust flow to take sharp turn, this can be restrictive at high RPMs. ALL headers smooth out the flow. So your shorty's are helping over stock manifold at all RPMs but they are helping more at launch then a set of long tubes would.

Basic rule
Shorties; scavenge best below 3000 RPMs
Mids: scavenge best below 4500 RPM
Long tubes: scavenge 4500 RPM up

Budget, 383 and "pay a garage" are three things that are not going to go well together.