Performance exhaust manifolds vrs headers

[Matthew Jeschke]

Hahaha love the joke.

I have to be honest. I know very little about stock 5.3L tahoe exhaust.

Am assuming an upgrade wouls be larger exhaust ports and cat back tubing etc?

Excuse my terminology.

Additionally I see so bargon headers for around 300$. What is the catch. They say ceramic coated.

UPDATE they appear to be non ceramic coated, stainless steal headers. There are quite a few on amazon.

UPDATE 2 lol I found a bunch of DIY videos on how todonyour own ceramic coating. Many on headers. Have any of you done that?

 

[fozzi58]

I put a set of JBA headers on my 2000 Dodge Ram 2500 back in 2001. My father still drives the truck with 180k+ on the clock. Outside of a little ticking from gaskets, there's nothing wrong with the headers. I went with Kooks on my Burb and I am happy with them. No coating or wrap on either the Ram or my Burb and I live in the northeast.

I had the headers on my Trans Am coated because that engine compartment is tight as hell and everything near it can and will get heat soaked. You can drop a bowling ball from the top of the engine compartment through to the bottom with room to spare on these trucks so heat soak is much less a problem. I think a set of headers, even without the coating, would be fine.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Sweet thanks for the tip. The coated headers are super expensive. I may stipp coat them myself as looked pretty simple.

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

 

[iamdub]

The DIY coatings are nowhere nearly as effective as the pro stuff, but still much better than nothing. True that heat soak isn't as much of a problem due to the extra space, but there's still wire harnesses/looms and hoses that will dryrot faster from the extra heat. It's not a huge concern.

 

[mattt]

Has anyone tried the now discontinued Edelbrock 65022 coated headers for Tahoe/Suburban/Silverado/Sierra? Is it worth the effort and cost to change to headers such as these or no noticeable difference vs. stock manifolds?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

I too woundered if shorties would give much of a power boost over manifolds?

Sent from my SM-A505U using Tapatalk

 

[91RS]

The restriction in the stock exhaust is the factory cats, not the manifolds. Shorty headers really aren't worth the money. Do long tubes or just leave it alone. Buy good quality long tubes like ARH and you'll never have an issue.

 

[mikeyss]

Buy good quality long tubes like ARH and you'll have an issue.

Think you meant to say 'you'll *never* have an issue', lol

 

[Staggered 02]

Good quality headers is the way to go. Heat issues can be mitigated by ceramic coating the headers. I've done that to all of my headers with excellent results. The ARH headers made for our Escalades are very, very nice. No fitment issue. well made, Very glad I did that coupled with changing to the catback exhaust and a tune of course. What a difference in performance, some fuel mileage increases, and the sound.

For added reference I ceramic coated a set of Tri-Ys for my SS Impala (11 years), Pacesetter for the Crew Cab (7 years), and Dynatech headers for the 02 ECSB 9 years). I also did a ceramic coated a set on an El Camino that I had for well over 20 years all with no header issues.

If you get a good or above average quality header, get it ceramic coated to resolve engine bay heat issues you should have no problems at all. Good luck.

 

[Matthew Jeschke]

Staggered 22: Many you are the bomb. Thanks for the help! Exactly what I was curious about. I honestly, watched how the shops and header manufacturers coat the headers on Youtube. It's not much different than what you would do at home. Only the polishing setup I don't have. They were using a tumbler with likely millions of miniature sanding balls then turning it in the machine to polish the headers. Otherwise they were using a sprayer to ceramic coat them, same as anybody else would use.

Couple questions:

1. Did you up the size of the exhaust (diameter)?
2. I'd prefer to keep the truck emissions compliant (with cats).
3. I'd like long tubes but to maintain the cat back exhaust for now as is a large investment.
4. Additionally, looking to swap my engine for a 6.0, assuming exhaust is same for that and 5.3

I've honestly never done an exhaust upgrade before so a bit of a novice when specing it out.