Have a few mods done to my 18' 5.3, are headers next?

[Ryansal]

Hello All, 

 

I have a 2018 Silverado with the 5.3, so far I have done these "mods"

 

AFE power momentum GT cold air intake.

Borla Dual exhaust

Replaced the L83 throttle body and Intake manifold with the L86 (non ported)

 

Have a nice increase in power, I'm thinking about headers now.

 

I've heard a lot about the long tube headers I'm thinking about going all in with the long tube "stainless works", this will require a tune and about $4k total

 

On the flip side I'm thinking of Equal length shorty headers to cut down on some costs and eliminate the need for a tune...?

 

My question is, if I were to get the long tube headers, how does it work with the cats? Is it better to get Cats or no cats? Do I have a choice?

 

Also, If I were to get the shortys, what brands do you suggest? Would it be necessary for a tune with only shortys?

 

Thanks in advance!

Edited August 23, 2021 by Ryansal

[pokismoki]

I recently removed those two hoses going to the valve cover breather ports, it is a source of oil injestion into the motor. so what i did was order a set of 5/8" breathers from Uni off Amazon. been running great so far and there is no potential for unmetered air to get past the MAF sensor to mess up your AFR

 

dont waste your time with headers until you get the whole truck situated , i suggest get the transmission tuned first.. once you find a reliable safe tuner then start into the motor

Edited August 23, 2021 by pokismoki

[CamGTP]

Shorty headers are complete waste of money, don't even bother thinking about those. The stock exhaust manifolds do just as good as those do.

 

If you go with long tube you will want cat converters. Otherwise the exhaust is going to stupid load, drone and rasp like crazy. You'd have to add in more resonators to tame it down. You may even need/want another resonator even with long tubes that have cats.

 

American Racing headers also make great quality stuff. $4,000 for headers and tune sounds crazy to me.

 

ARH headers with cats is $1,900ish. SW's are similar around $2,000.

 

The horsepower per dollar spent for expensive headers just didn't make sense to me, so I never went that route. I did E85 instead because it cost me $100 and I do the tuning myself.

 

 

[Ryansal]

17 hours ago, pokismoki said:

I recently removed those two hoses going to the valve cover breather ports, it is a source of oil injestion into the motor. so what i did was order a set of 5/8" breathers from Uni off Amazon. been running great so far and there is no potential for unmetered air to get past the MAF sensor to mess up your AFR

 

dont waste your time with headers until you get the whole truck situated , i suggest get the transmission tuned first.. once you find a reliable safe tuner then start into the motor

 

I see so the oil is coming in from the Cold air intake to the motor, So put the breathers on the valve cover ports.  What about the hoses coming off of the CAI, do I cap those off? Thank you

[Ryansal]

17 hours ago, CamGTP said:

Shorty headers are complete waste of money, don't even bother thinking about those. The stock exhaust manifolds do just as good as those do.

 

If you go with long tube you will want cat converters. Otherwise the exhaust is going to stupid load, drone and rasp like crazy. You'd have to add in more resonators to tame it down. You may even need/want another resonator even with long tubes that have cats.

 

American Racing headers also make great quality stuff. $4,000 for headers and tune sounds crazy to me.

 

ARH headers with cats is $1,900ish. SW's are similar around $2,000.

 

The horsepower per dollar spent for expensive headers just didn't make sense to me, so I never went that route. I did E85 instead because it cost me $100 and I do the tuning myself.

 

 

I appreciate the advice, I've been hearing that shortys don't do a ton and the noise factor can be a problem with longs. 

 

They are telling me the long tube stainless works headers are about $2000, with $850 for a tune and dyno and $1000 for labor.

 

What is E85?

 

Would you suggest I do the tune myself, what product would you recommend?  Thanks for the help!

[Patrick D 483]

1 hour ago, Ryansal said:

I appreciate the advice, I've been hearing that shortys don't do a ton and the noise factor can be a problem with longs. 

 

They are telling me the long tube stainless works headers are about $2000, with $850 for a tune and dyno and $1000 for labor.

 

What is E85?

 

Would you suggest I do the tune myself, what product would you recommend?  Thanks for the help!

E85 is ethanol fuel instead of just gasoline.  See if your car is setup to run on it first.

 

[pokismoki]

2 hours ago, Ryansal said:

 

I see so the oil is coming in from the Cold air intake to the motor, So put the breathers on the valve cover ports.  What about the hoses coming off of the CAI, do I cap those off? Thank you

yeah autozone sells 5/8" water heater caps

 

just do E85, activate the tables for it and turn on Power enrichment about 60% throttle, this may be all the power you'll really need

Edited August 23, 2021 by pokismoki

[Ryansal]

1 hour ago, pokismoki said:

yeah autozone sells 5/8" water heater caps

 

just do E85, activate the tables for it and turn on Power enrichment about 60% throttle, this may be all the power you'll really need

Thanks about the water heater caps, have no clue about turning on the tables and power enrichment

[CamGTP]

If you don't really know anything about tuning, no I do not suggest you learn on this truck. It's very involved on vehicles like this. If you don't have E85 fuel locally at your fuel stations, then it's likely not something I would suggest doing either.

 

If the truck doesn't even have a tune on it right now, I would do that before doing anything else. A good tune by someone that knows what they are doing will surely wake that truck up and make it drive a whole lot better.

 

 

[Ryansal]

6 minutes ago, CamGTP said:

If you don't really know anything about tuning, no I do not suggest you learn on this truck. It's very involved on vehicles like this. If you don't have E85 fuel locally at your fuel stations, then it's likely not something I would suggest doing either.

 

If the truck doesn't even have a tune on it right now, I would do that before doing anything else. A good tune by someone that knows what they are doing will surely wake that truck up and make it drive a whole lot better.

 

 

I appreciate the advice!, I think i'm going with some american racing long tube headers (with cats) and a calibration ( 1 guy said he does it "on the road" as trucks don't fit well on the dyno), the other guy said he does a full tune with the dyno, ??     thanks again

[pokismoki]

before you spend money on a dyno tune, install the Kateck 175 thermostat, to reduce KR when under load, have them set the fans to about 190 F, i feel stock is way too hot,  oh and don't increase the top speed, the driveline needs upgrading to go past 100mph

Edited August 24, 2021 by pokismoki

[53boy]

I have texas speed long tubes with high flow cats now . Would highly recommend and I would suggest wrapping the headers also. Get the L86 intake manifold, direct swap. I have that also. 
 

tune with blackbear performance. Great tuners over there. 
 

fyi, if you go longtubes with or without cats , it will be very loud unless you a quiet/mild catback.