headers & cat backs, torque and money

[spoogenet]

Will I be wasting money on a cat back without having headers? Will I lose much torque by having one or both?

Most of my driving is around town. I don't run much higher than 3500 rpm during normal driving. I'm also running the A/C quite a bit, it gets a little toasty in TX during summer months....March thru November. So having low-end torque is probably benefitial to me, I don't wanna have to run to redline just to get a little acceleration.

Running to redline just wastes too much gas. After putting on my intake I got 22.75 mpg on that tank, I used to be getting 26 in the city.....it's all cuz of my heavy foot. So I'm trying to get my gas mileage higher. :)

b

[AzCivic]

You won't lose any torque if you get a good exhaust that has a reasonable diameter piping(2 1/4"). It won't be a waste of money to get one and not the other, it will not work as good if you had both but its still worth getting. Whatever you decide don't try and go the cheap route or you will see a loss in power.

[spoogenet]

I've almost finalized my decision to the Greddy SP exhaust. Seems to be what I'm looking for, both quiet and a good performer.

For headers I probably won't mess with those for a while, I was eyeing up the DC Sports Stainless Steel header.

Don't worry, I don't believe in buying cheap stuff.....which is why so far I've only got an intake, need mo money!

b

[AzCivic]

:D Don't we all!!!

Your choices look pretty good though.

[XdiscontensionX]

i was wondering if anyone has had any experience with Thermal R&D exhausts? i went to manchester motorsports this weekend and they were really trying to push them as well as the skunk2. any opinions?

[2ndGenTeg]

I like the Thermal exhausts. High quality pieces. They're also fairly cheap, comparatively speaking. They also sound great.

I haven't seen/heard the Skunk2 (RS*R) personally, but from what I understand, it's only an axle back. Only consider that if you're having the rest of the system custom made. Otherwise, you'll get ZERO benefit from it.

Edit:

Also, you won't be wasting money with just either the header or the exhaust, but you won't see as much from either as you would from the two put together- i.e. header=5 hp, exhaust=5 hp; header+exhaust=12 hp. I'm not saying you'll get 12 horse from a header and exhaust, but you get my drift.

It's all about the bottlenecks.