I cant get long tube headers, so I am trying to decide what I should do for my next mod. Should I go with Dual Electric Fans, Ceramic Coated shorty headers, or Underdrive pulleys. My dad had some horror stories with long tube headers, and he said that while he still owned the truck, he wouldnt let me get them, but he liked the idea of shortys. Also if I get shortys, I can get still keep the stock exhaust system until I can afford to do the high flow cats, mufflers, and X-pipe. What mods do you guys recommend? I want whatever will get me more power. Whatever will make me faster in the 1/4 and off the line. Thanks

 

i dont know how good shorty hehaders are so i cant really rate them. the electric fans will give you some gains, but nothing noticeable (at least i didint notice anything after i installed mine). i would go with the underdrive pulleys, i have the march power and amp series and they're a great mod, good bang for the buck. good luck!

 

Did the pulleys give you more off the line power?

 

I personally wouldn't use underdrive pulleys. I would put them on a track car, just not my daily driver. Just my opinion though, a lot of people have them and love them.

Yes you will get some gain on shortys. Long tubes would give you a little more top end gain due to higher flow, but will reduce velocity. If you were building a nasty engine, long tubes would give you significant gains compared to shortys. I think shortys will be substantial for your application and I think long tubes can cause you to be emissions illegal (if that applies to you).

I like electric fans, I posted my setup not too long ago. Donate54 is right, the HP gains are not drastic, but I got smoother idle and seemingly a little gain. Most aftermarket setups are expensive for the HP gains if that is all you are going for.

For off the line and 1/4 mile gains I would go with gears. I'd reccomend either 3.73's or 4.10's. You probably will only gain 1/10 sec at most with 4.10's over 3.73's, and I would probably opt for 3.73's myself. All depends on what you want.

After that its time for heads and intake.

 

I am going to get 3.73 LS gears when Im at college next year. For right now I am trying to go with bolt ons. So you think shortys. I have seen JBAs and they look great, but they are pretty expensive, what other ones do yall recommend, I want to get something that is Ceramic coated or similar, so that it doesnt rust. Should I go with equal length shotys or what?

 

My buddie got some chrome ones for his mustang. Im not sure what brand, but they looked good and should hold up good. The heat does turn portions blue, etc but I like them better than the coated or painted.

 

Chrome is a very non-durable finish. It cracks and flakes off and ultimately provides very little corrosion resistance.

If you really don't want ceramic, nickle plate is the way to go. It won't flake off like chrome and it provides much bettercorrosion resistance.

Ceramic is still the best for a variety of reasons: it keeps the heat in the exhaust gasses so they have more energy and therefore more velocity, it reduces underhood temperatures and allows you to work around a hot exhaust with a much lesser chance of getting burned, etc. Corrosion resistance is just an added plus.

 

I think I am deffinately going to get JBA headers. If I get there lowest line, it is still nickel plated. If I want to dump more money, I will get ceramic. The JBA for the 302 truck is not equal length, is there a reason why. What brands do yall recommend.

I saw this on another site:
With the installation of a set of JBA shorty headers on a stock Ford F-150 truck with a fuel injected 302, improvements of 3.68 miles per hour in the 1/4 mile, with a 6 tenths reduction were made. (Peterson Publishing, Jerry Pitt)

 

call me crazy, but doesnt that sound a bit exaggerated? they say they gained 3.6mph and 6 TENTHS in tehe quarter with just shortie headers on a 302? DAMN if thats for real then that really makes up for their high price, but the only way i would say this is possible is if they had heads/cam/intake in the truck and still had the stock manifolds (not letting the engine breathe). then the change from manifolds to headers would yield a bigger gain like that one. did that guy say what else he had installed on his 302?

 

Read Neal's posts, he dropped 1 second off his 1/4 nile time by doing JBA headers, ASP pulleys, and Dual electric fans, I would think most of that time came from from the headers.

 

I have "The Ford Bible" by Mozes Finerely and it basically discuraged purchasing equal length headers. I can not remember the exact reasons as I would have to look it up but since this book has extensive knowledge about all aspects I dont doubt it. But that doesn't mean its the same for everyone. And for that reason I wouldn't waste my money or time trying to locate equal lenth headers. The gains over regular headers on a stock engine (Im talking about heads, valvetrain, lower end....not other bolt ons) will be near zero.

If you want to talk to some people about equal length headers go on over to ford-trucks.com and weed though all the crap and you will find some that might be able to inform you on the differnece they faced with them.

 

damn, if they really do make that big of a difference then go for it, let me know how you like 'em!

 

You know I will LOL I will probably order them next weekend. I want to call Mike and see what his price is, even if he is more expensive, I would rather do business with him than anyone else. He has the best customer support I have ever had. After i do all that, then I can eventually get the Maganflow cats mufflers x-pipe... I cant wait

 

Any other opinions on which headers to go with?

 

Some equal length shorties make it almost impossible to get to the spark plugs, especially when they're hot, and can make routing of the spark plug wires problematical. If you go with equal length, you probably want to consider ceramic coating. If you go with unequal shorties then either stainless of nickel plate is OK, but are not going to give you as much as the ceramics.

For stainless, look at the Ford Motorsport part M-9430-T50