What are the both advantages and disadvantages of open headers. Quick question thats all. I might be doing it before I get my piping done, and as of right now I still have no funds to do it because Im focusing on a vtec head and my piping today just went on the down side and is almost falling off so I will stop driving the car. Let me know what are the comments haha.

 

There will be zero backpressure. Im assuming since you said open header your not boosted and your car is pretty much stock on the inside.

Your car will run like crap, It will be obnoxious sounding, and you might run the risk of burning a valve if you run it for a while like that.

 

x2 QFT

 

Yes, no boost. So far then there is no advantage as to running it open header. Thanks for the input guys if theres anymore im gladly reading it thanks again.

 

LOL..
you will not burn valves.... you will make more power, pretty much every time


cons: loudness

 

If you take the exhaust off I can almost guarantee you will loose horsepower on the dyno. We did this on may cars with our dyno and all the N/A ones lost horsepower.

And running open exhaust with zero backpressure will increase the chance of you burning an exhaust valve. Not saying its going to happen all the time or in the short term but it will definitely increase of the chance.

 

well, i have seen most power gains from taking the exhaust off.. i dont see how taking a restriction off would not.

what does back pressure have to do with keeping power and burning valves.we are not in the 60's .. read a little about back pressure myth..its about velocity.

if you had headers that were 5 inches long; then yeah burned valves would happen.
no way you gonna burn valves with an open header...please

if not motorcycles would have real bad problems hugh? common sense

 

like others have said...NO back pressure will cause damage to your internals. and also the noise will be way too loud.

 

To the OP: Your car will functuion as a normal car with less low end torque and much more noise. The damage some may be refering to could be caused by the rapid cooling of an exhaust valve since the open exhaust does not retain as much heat. Metal subjected to extreme heating and cooling cycles becomes more brittle with time.

 

Oh, I get it now. Well just to be on the safe side im not going to do this idea anymore but thanks for all the info guys I bet someone in the future will search something like this to wondering if its a good thing or not.

 

this place has gotten stupider over time

 

For sure.

Old myths die hard.

 

from what ive read on boosted applications: open downpipe and a 3" exhaust made equal power on a 300hp car.

in a nutshell:

boost=least amount of backpressure as possible is best. weather it be a huge exhaust piping or open downpipe.

ive had an exhaust leak in an old d series car and it ran like ****. so from that experience, id say with N/A cars. some backpressure is your friend.

forgive me if im wrong. thats my .02

 

I'm not trying to be an ******* when I ask this..

Nor am I trying to say anyone who is saying Open headers damage internals is wrong..

But just getting off of civics for a second, Why is it then that a 440 big Block can get away with Open headers and a Civic Can't? I've SEEN Gains off of them doing it, and besides running louder, there were significant gains (And not to mention that Instead of losing by 2 cars the prior run he closed the gap to about a car, car and a half on the second run..maybe I wasn't as effective the second run, but I'd be damned if he car didn't seem to run a little harder with the headers open).

Can someone explain it to me? Once again i'm not saying the Zero backpressure = Damaged Internals thing is wrong..I'm just asking why in the case of the muscle cars, they can get away with it, or they seem to.