This is difficult to explain so try to bare with me guys.

Before using aftermarket headers, I could be cruising on the freeway around 65 or 70mph, stomp the pedal, and put me in what felt like top of second gear. At half throttle, it would drop me down one gear before dropping to the next. So full throttle would give me a major boost from gears in this (so I think) order: 4, 2, 3, and then to 4 when I am at cruising RPM's again.

If someone doesnt understand fully what I am saying please tell me..

Now after installing my headers, it will give me that quick boost at full throttle only when cruising at low speeds (up to 30-40mph). But at 50-60mph it wont drop down to give me a good boost. It will drop down one gear and put me up to about 4-5k RPMs before switching back to 4th gear. Do you guys understand what I am describing?

I am assuming that the airflow difference with the new headers changed some dynamics about my engine and its exhaust flow. No CEL's, but I decided to reset my ECU anyways so I will see if that helps the next time I go driving.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what it can be? It's not a tranny problem, it started doing this immediately after the new headers. It seems like my car is slower with aftermarket than stock.

 

HP comes at the high end

low to mid range either looses are slight but should not affect your accelleration

 

not really sure what that means..
are you saying aftermarket headers improve top end speeds but do nothing for low/mid?

 

not sure but possible if it is getting better airflow you are losing some back pressure and that is why you don't feel as much zip and cruise speeds.

 

How would I find out if this is the case? Stock cats and piping for the most part. Don't know why I'd be losing back pressure.

 

not sure how u check but reason i bring it up is because i remember when the whole "tuner" exhaust thing started i knew a bunch of people ran straight 3" pipe and although it was annoyingly loud they had the same effect that you describe and when they took it in that was the answer they got, decreased back pressure. in there case they put a muffler on and for the most part it was fixed

 

I have stock piping, like I mentioned. I just have the axleback muffler.

 

what about your intake? could also be if you got some cheap header it is more restrictive if it is not designed properly

 

HMMM i was thinkin of running a 421 header to go wit my magnflow cat, and stock exhaust

 

that's what i am planing on running. of course i also have a full cat back system so should give it a lil more kick

 

http://www.team-integra.net/sections...p?ArticleID=17

read this

 

when you add a header to an engine you will typically loose some low and mid range hp/torque and gain some high end HP. There are always trade offs when it comes to performance......

 

I found this highflow cat:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/OBX-O...Q5fAccessories

Do you think it will give me any increase until I can get my Catback exhaust? It says its street legal, is that true?

 

Does your new header cover the exhaust ports fully? I had a stock manifold on a motor that came out with a header, and the manifold didnt cover the holes all of the way resulting in hot air in my engine bay,(also didnt have my heat shields, but i do now) which was in turn sucked through my intake and not near as dense as the cool air with the correct header on it, resulting in less volatile of an explosion cause hot air is not as dense.. Just a thought. Tryin to get my 5 posts in too. I like this forum

 

sure it would be street legal. not like the cops are going to check under the car LOL. if you are close to failing emissions than this might take you over the limit but if not you should be fine

 

Maybe possible with the factory gasket on it. Maybe I could try running the gasket that came with it..Or just feel around the mani to see if there's any hot air leaks.

Actually emissions is what I was talking about. I think I'm due for smog in June (F**king CA laws) so I'll throw my stock headers back on to go pass..

Then after that its a toss up between that highflow cat or just running a test pipe w/ an o2 tricker thing. Just until I can get around to getting my catback. Catback exhausts won't mess with emissions at all, right? Since its simply the exhaust coming out of the cat?

 

i would go with the high flow cat personally unless you want the extra sound than go with the straight pipe. as far as passing emissions over all without trying to state the obvious but that mostly depends on how your rides does in general. i have a cat back exhaust and i passed with flying colors when i did emissions a couple months ago. if memory serves me correctly (and it usually doesn't LOL) your muffler don't clean up too much of the exhaust but there to muffle the sound. Hench fourth why it is called a muffler. your resonator does pretty much the same thing and you cat on the other hand does filter out some exhaust. which is why after time it can clog. a high flow cat that is rated "street legal" should have roughly the same amount of filtering just provide less back pressure. don't quote me on that but i think that's how it goes. any one else please feel free to correct me if i am wrong.

something to remember is you buy some cheap cat online the odds it clogging much faster than a good OEM is much more. sometimes you get what you pay for

 

test pipe will be an automatic fail when trying to pass emissions ... as far as a high flow i couldn't say ... when i blew out 2 oem cat's since i installed my megan header ... i've gutted it for now ... my check engine light comes on once in a while though which sucks ... i'll be getting a random technology hi-flo cat ... hopefully i wont have the same prob.