I believe the aftermarket Y pipes follow the same year breakdowns. One year seems to say it fits two other years, but requires welding 98-99 might fit an 00, but you'll have to weld...or that's what I remember from memory).

Is the LS6 worth it on a more or less stock engine?

When I had a stock LS1 short block with LS1 intake, small cam and longtube headers, I gained 25-30rwhp, with it being tuned before and after. I may have printed dyno sheets in storage...not sure, that was over 10 years ago.

YES !

... And a 220R cam is COMPLETELY live-able,m even in a daily driven car

~DaVe

Just talked to Texas speed. They said to go with a 224r 112 LSA. You would be able to tell there's a cam in it, but it will be completely driveable.

Even without headers?

Yeah he said I'll just be leaving more on the table. And someday if he wants more, the headers will make a big difference. He was guessing we'd be at 350, maybe more to the ground. I guess we'll find out, huh?

Cool. I know you can run any cam without headers, but they don't always like it due to dilution of the incoming air charge (because of poor cylinder scavenging). I expected them to push you towards the 114 LSA cam without headers. Interesting.

I think you'd have to be at more then 350 RWHP. The SOM SS I had dynoed at 329 RWHP and it only had a lid and an exhaust on it. That cam has to be worth more than 21 hp. I'm curious to see what kind of results you get since I'm in the "don't want to deal with headers" crowd too. I might change my mind at some point....maybe. I just want to keep this one headache free, a car you can hop in and drive to the west coast without any issues.

why would headers cause driving/reliability issues?

Only when they leak, burn spark plug boots, or get ripped off the car on a speed bump. I had headers on one car that required me to constantly tighten the bolts. They kept backing out of the heads. Didn't matter what I did, the headers were always coming loose...then they burn a gasket and you get to swap header gaskets and put them back together. They had nice (3/8" thick) stainless steel flanges, but still didn't want to stay put. I've burned spark plug boots and picked up a miss. I've had headers on a lot of cars over the years (including a 1977 Chevy C20....lol) and they are almost always more "work" than a vehicle with stock manifolds. There's nothing wrong with running headers, I'm just getting old and cranky and I no longer like stopping in Frostburg, MD because I have a really bad miss climbing the hills in the mountains (8% grades) due to a burned plug wire. I wound up buying a wire and changing it in the parking lot of a parts store to get home. I don't have the patience for that stuff these days...not like I once did.

If you burn plug wires on an LS when the coils are right there, you did something wrong.

I began with Grotyohann longtube headers around 2000, and they eventually cracked at the collector, which prompted me to switched to ARH headers maybe around 2009? I've never burned a stock length spark plug boot using the factory coil mounting locations. I do get flat spotting on the bottom of the collectors from speed bumps if I set my front ride height too low. I've always used Stage 8 locking nuts on the exhaust flanges, never lost one during use (but lost plenty of locking clips while R&R'ing the little bastards). There aren't any hills in Floriduh, I think the steepest grade I've encountered was on I-75 on the TN/GA border, and that might only have been 4-5%? I did travel through mountains at night going between TN and the Carolina's years ago, but I don't remember what interstate that might have been or the grade.

That was kind of my thought, too. I've so far had decent luck with headers, other than the scraping the speed bump stuff. Two of our LTX cars have long tubes, and I've never put a wrench on them. The Firebird has Stainless Works swap headers, and have been fine for almost a year (that's how long we've had the engine in the car without major work, not because of header problems). Typing that, I guess I need to check bolts on my next trip to the shop. (IMG:http://www.frrax.com/rrforum/style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

But yeah, they are generally more work, especially if there's any work where you need to move them around, and things like starter changes, can sometimes require you to first loosen, or remove a header, which can triple the R&R time, and make work very annoying.

Does anyone know of any back-to-back comparisons of stock manifold vs. shortys vs. long tube HP output? It would be interesting to see, and not some stupid magazine 'shootout' articles where they compare those parts, but casually mention that they swapped out other parts, too, 'since they were there', so you don't know what contributed what.

Yeah he wants to avoid headers if we can for all the reasons mentioned. He wants to be able to take the car to the store or run errands and not have to worry if there's a speed bump or not.

I really can't find anyone who has cammed a car on stock manifolds. Everyone does LT's first. Everyone. Maybe because the Internet says you should? Idk.

I'm actually looking forward to seeing what kind of results we get and what the curves look like. I'm going to keep an eye out for an LS6 intake manifold but I'll use the stock one if I can't find one. It's easy to change down the road.

When I bought my car it had Mac mid-lengths, Y-pipe and custom merge collector. I had installed 5.3 ported heads, Custom Cam from TEA 222/222 .581 xer on a 114+4. It made RWHP 400hp/425ftlbs. Drove like a dump truck and you didn't have to rev it to the moon. Even with mid lengths and a lowered car you have to be mind-full of speed bumps.

Man I can't wait to get back to work on this car. I'm so excited about it. Oh that reminds me, I need to get in touch with the detailer and the dent remover dude.

So I'm going to tint the windows with whatever the legal limit is. The last thing I need to start thinking about is wheels. Are those 16's worth anything? The PO has them re finished and are honestly flawless. The tires have probably 80% tread.

With my car, I'm going for the blacked out look. I know, not very original, but I like it. What wheels would you put on the car? I talked to him about the wheels briefly and he agrees we should go with 18's to fit larger brakes and that's just where everything is headed anyway. Should I stick with 275's or can I easily fit larger? I've read on here that you guys say that wider tires make a big difference, but I think I read that you don't want more than 275's for the street.

When he does a track day, he's going to drive it to and from the track. So he's probably use something like NT05's for steet and occasional track.

We'll take brakes later, but I think I just want to get some ducting to the LS1 brakes and some good Carbotech pads. We'd swap the pads out for the track. They'd be ok driving to and from the track.

My corvette had stainless works headers. They were really nice. It also took me over 2 hours to get the MSD starter in the car with the headers just hanging in place where I could install them once the starter was in. Then they had slip fit collectors and when I was pulling the transmission to sell it....I basically destroyed the y pipe trying to hammer it off the headers. I finally took a sawzall to the Y pipe and trashed it to get the transmission out. I couldn't imagine trying to change a clutch at a track event with those. Yes, I know the LSx engines shouldn't burn boots like the SBC's do. It's the rest of it that I'm trying to avoid.

As for testing:

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/ls1-engine-header-test/

Sadly they didn't retest with the manifolds after the cam swap here:

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/ls1-engine-cam-install/

Maybe it's just me, but I've never understood why people are so worried about scraping the exhaust on the ground. It doesn't take much to change your approach angle and get over whatever it is with zero issue. Worst case they scrape a bit and they will self clearance eventually. It's not like anyone here is running some absurdly low ride height.

<--- Drove a Jetta for two years that was lowered ~3 inches and the oil pan/trans was the first thing to scrape over anything. Sold it with rolled bacon fenders and no rust since it would all just get scraped off before it could form.

When we had the 396 LT1 with LT's, the 02 sensors were basically in the collectors with band clamps attaching the Y pipes that held the high flow cats. If we dragged the exhaust hard enough, it would cause the band clamps to slip, causing an exhaust leak, which stunk. The worst parts was the it would give the 02 sensors a bad reading and the car would run like crap.

I eventually got sick of it and has it welded.

But, that's the taste by dad has in his mouth about long tubes. I can't blame him. He wants it to be super reliable and very friendly on the street. So that why I'm trying to make that happen.

Me on the other hand, I'm the idiot driving around a race car with the exhaust practically dragging on the ground and a big ass smile on my face!

Got an email today. I'm really considering it. I'd have to change that huge cam for the one Texas Speed recommended, but it's cheap enough. After the cam change, I'd have about $2k into it. Then I'd sell my bottom end for whatever I can get. I think it would end up being about the same price but then I'd have a 100k bottom end instead of a 172k mile bottom end.

Thoughts?


Here are the emails:

Hey man I've got the stock bottom end out of my z06 for sale. Comes with a vengeance vindicator cam, ls7 lifters, melling high volume/high pressure oil pump. Motor has about 100k on it, cam and lifters and oil pump have about 10k. Im in sc(Anderson to be exact) and was asking 1400 obo.

Hey Steve,

The cam specs are 240/244 .605/.596 112 lsa, honestly I still got mid 20s mpg on the highway. The only oil burning issue it ever had was from a loose valve stem seal the shop left loose. Other than a valve stem issue it never really used any noticeable amount. Bottom end held high compression numbers and leak down values a cross the board. Oil pressure held pretty rock steady idling in the 50 lbs area even when hot.

The motor in its current form is a completely assembled shortblock. I took the oil pan off to use on my new motor setup but other that I sealed it up and wheeled the stand off to the side of the garage. It was pulled about a month back for two reasons really. I had a buddy who was "buying it for sure" and I believed him since he had bought my intake manifold and heads, so why not this.... well he no longer has the money and I don't want to endlessly wait so it's got to go, and the other reason is I was doing a turbo build and wanted a motor I could really beat on and make lots of power and not worry about since I'll be tuning on this one so I shoved a 5.3 iron block in the car.

The motor never did me wrong. Always a stout performer, but I dailydrove it for 2 years with absolutely zero issues. The front timing cover and all is still on the motor, lifters haven't came unmatted from the cam, heck the lifter trays are still bolted in the block.