RB, Thanks for the insight. Why the Hookers over TTIs? How much of a power difference? Any other reason(s)? Any concern over the smallish collector on the Hookers - or does that work in the Hemi's favor?
Im not sure why the collectors are that small on those headers, but a big collector doesn’t always mean more power.
I bought my first set of Hookers in 1980. Actually I bought two sets. One for me and one for a friend I was building a 318 for. And two Strip Dominators.
All the “experts” said the headers were too big (5204 Hookers) and that the SD wouldn’t make power until 5k plus.
Fortunately, the guy who was helping me plus my dad were 100% sure the ”experts” were wrong. And they were.
As for the TTI headers, they are designed more as a street header. They go on in one piece. That right there is a clue that too many compromises were made to make the header go on in one piece.
A good header is 4 pieces per side. The headers in your link are one piece so that bothers me a bit.
The collectors TTI uses are just weird. They have an odd shape to them.
The biggest issue I have with them outside of the above stuff is early last year I called TTI and supposedly got a hold of the owner. I wanted to know how long the primary tubes were on his 1 7/8 A body headers were. His answer was “I don’t know”!! WTF???
And he said we do not build headers with a specific primary tube length in mind, we build them with whatever the primary tube lengths need to be to get them to fit the car.
One thing I’ve learned (two actually) about headers is primary tube diameter and length go hand in hand.
If you are using a relatively small primary tube (say 1 5/8 or even 1 3/4) the tubes need to be relatively long. Like 36-40 inches long. A short, small diameter primary tube header will be a pig.
A bigger tube header (say 1 7/8 and up) needs a shorter tube length. Say 28-32 inches. Bigger primary tubes that are long will kill power everywhere.
There is a relationship there between primary tube diameter and length but I have yet to find the math to explain it or at least get you a ball park for how it should be.
The other thing about headers, making power and the header actually making a change is the Lobe Separation Angle of the cam.
If the LSA is right or a bit on the narrow side for the APPLICATION a tuned header will always show a nice power increase.
Get the LSA too wide for the APPLICATION and and you can bet all you have and a lot of stuff you don’t have that the header won’t make a pinch of crap difference.
I know this from doing this crap for a long time. But Billy Godbold (formerly of Comp Cams) said in a magazine interview that LSA and header performance do go hand in hand.
I kept a copy of that interview because some guys think LSA doesn’t matter, but it does matter and it matters in more ways than one.
