What do headears do for your car?

Question

What exactly do headers do? and if its a choice between headers and a cold air intake, which would give more power?

Answer 1

dodgeman is an idiot

Answer 2

Headers allow the engines combustion cycle to work more effectively and efficiently, by opening up the flow of exhaust.
The main idea behind using headers is the motor's got to crap what it eats, plus they sound bitchin.
To get the most out of your headers try having them tuned. Tuned headers are when all of the down pipes are made the exact same length to each other from the exhaust manifold to the collector.
A cold air intake is a fine way to improve performance as well. The principal here being that cold air develops power, warm air improves economy.
What you didn't mention is what vehicle you're working with for this application, whether its currently stock or what engine modifications you've already done on it.
Assuming its stock, either would be a good way to go, the cold air intake allows 5-25 additional horsepower, while a set of headers are a bit less 5-20 horsepower. These depend on your application.
If your vehicle isn't stock, and your on a budget, I would start with the headers and install some flowmaster mufflers to maximize the combustion capabilities. Then add the cold air intake.

Answer 3

Not exactly a short answer. Headers will help (actually a lot) the exhaust leave the engine better by using the pulse of exhaust from an earlier firing cylinder to help "pull" the exhaust from the next firing cylinder. You will probably get more power from the headers, but the combination of a good quality cold air intake AND headers would make a much bigger difference since your not only helping air leave the engine, but also get air into the engine (and the headers will actually help the cold air system allow more air into the engine).

Answer 4

Headers allow an engine to breath more freely. As you may know the better the engine can get rid of exhaust the more HP it will develop. They replace the stock exhaust manifold that your exhaust pipe hooks up to. It is good for about 20 25 more HP by itself,however to get maximum performance also replace the stock muffler with a performance muffler which will add another 10 12 HP. If you are going to add a cold airintake you should have a way to adjust timing and spark . If you have a older car pre 1980-s and have a distributor instead of ECU control you can adjust the timing and spark by using a timing light and advance the time when ignition takes place in the cylinder. Rule of thumb is about 10deg. or short of causing detonation. If you have a 1996 or better year vehicle there is what is known as a PCM(power control module)that will reset your cars computer settings based on info put into the PCM. The PCM will first read your cars stock settings and save incase u want to return.

Answer 5

Headers, as someone else noted, allow the exhaust gases to escape the engine and direct them to the mufflers.

If you can jam more cold air into an engine you get better efficiency and therefore more horsepower for the same gas used.

Good headers can minimze back pressure on the pistons and system and prevent horsepower from being wasted to overcome the pressure.

My vote, however goes with the cold air intake (it used to be called RAM intake too). More bang for the bucks but more work is required to install it if you go for something like the infamous hood scoop.

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Answer 6

Well the idea of headers is less exhaust restriction. Plus they usually make the car sound better. On V8 of course. six's and four bangers just seem to get more annoying. Now in theory if you let more air out your are going to have to replace it. So a cold air intake would also in prove the power. Which is better depends on the car and the engine .They do not all respond the same.

Answer 7

eaders are one of the easiest bolt-on accessories you can use to improve an engine's performance. The goal of headers is to make it easier for the engine to push exhaust gases out of the cylinders.

When you look at the four-stroke cycle in How Car Engines Work, you can see that the engine produces all of its power during the power stroke. The gasoline in the cylinder burns and expands during this stroke, generating power. The other three strokes are necessary evils required to make the power stroke possible. If these three strokes consume power, they are a drain on the engine.

During the exhaust stroke, a good way for an engine to lose power is through back pressure. The exhaust valve opens at the beginning of the exhaust stroke, and then the piston pushes the exhaust gases out of the cylinder. If there is any amount of resistance that the piston has to push against to force the exhaust gases out, power is wasted. Using two exhaust valves rather than one improves the flow by making the hole that the exhaust gases travel through larger.

In a normal engine, once the exhaust gases exit the cylinder they end up in the exhaust manifold. In a four-cylinder or eight-cylinder engine, there are four cylinders using the same manifold. From the manifold, the exhaust gases flow into one pipe toward the catalytic converter and the muffler. It turns out that the manifold can be an important source of back pressure because exhaust gases from one cylinder build up pressure in the manifold that affects the next cylinder that uses the manifold.

The idea behind an exhaust header is to eliminate the manifold's back pressure. Instead of a common manifold that all of the cylinders share, each cylinder gets its own exhaust pipe. These pipes come together in a larger pipe called the collector. The individual pipes are cut and bent so that each one is the same length as the others. By making them the same length, it guarantees that each cylinder's exhaust gases arrive in the collector spaced out equally so there is no back pressure generated by the cylinders sharing the collector.

Answer 8

headers help the car exhale exhaust more efficiently. I have heard that they don't always help. If you haven't put on a cat back system do that instead of the headers. If you have go with the cold air system. Got to let help it breath and exhale.

Answer 9

improves the breathing of the car,bigger diameters of tubes mean more gases escaping. Headers are more of a power increase on a car than a intake for sure.

Answer 10

I think this actually depends on the manufacturer of each. the car, header and CA intake.

although aftermarket manufacturers aim to improve the performance of your vehicle some times they don't get as much of an improvement from replacing the header as they do from replacing the cold air intake.

i would suggest looking at the gains (specs) each component provides to your vehicle in terms of toque and horsepower.

i can tell you that CA intakes are easier to install yourself than headers.

hope this helps...

Answer 11

Headers take the exhaust gases from the engine to the exhaust system.