Trying to be realistic

1930 said
440 engine, mild build, definitely not wild, good torque cam, good cast iron heads, 750 Edelbrock/aluminum intake, good internals/balanced ect,no high RPMS needed...... nothing exotic but not lame stock.

Id like to run my stock truck cast iron manifolds, I have a set that are NOS and no issues, the look is just fine for me and will be even better once I get them ceramic coated, I can buy a set of headers at about a grand all done but I dont want to just piss away money.

I can see where a set of headers on a high revving engine can expel the exhaust that much quicker and how thats needed on a high RPM engine but mine is gonna see 5000 and down 95% of the time and the only time it would ever see above that is if I decided to get stupid which prob. isnt gonna happen.

On the same token I dont want to put a big cork in my engine. What do you all think?

first off, 440's take a ton of cam and head work to make power in high RPMS. My car has ported heads and a [email protected] solid cam, 2" headers and a 950 carb. It makes peak power at 5800. When it had an 825 and 1.875" headers it peaked at 5600. It makes 450ftlbs at the wheels at 3500 and at 2500 it makes over 400hp and over 400ft./lbs. Hardly a high RPM race car.

If you want to run manifolds that's fine. they are reliable but harder to make power with. Perhaps try to find a cam with split duration to hold the exhaust valves open a little longer to compensate. Ceramic coating manifolds is a waste. I personally run headers on my daily drivers. I put 100,000 miles on a set of headers on my F150. Some of my care have come with factory stainless headers. I.e Audi, BMW. The euros are way ahead of us.

Headers are not just for high RPM power.