Does anyone know how much the early Gen2s gain with creampuff tubular manifolds?

[Troublemaker]

I know it shaves a bit of weight from the cast anchors, but is there a power benefit from them also?

[plumcrazy]

minimal, not worth the effort IMO. maybe 5-7rwhp ?

[Troublemaker]

Plum, to be honest the weight savings were more of what I was after, any added power is just icing on the cake. 5-7hp is actually pretty good for the $100 or so. I am changing all the motor mounts this winter and hacking the cats off so it seemed like a good time to explore some cheap upgrades. I am still considering a Gen4 top end, so buying good headers for the Gen2 heads just seems like a waste of money right now.

[opnwide]

Plus the tubular headers look nicer under the hood

[Hiss Highness]

my tubular headers put a lot of heat into the bay, also had a weird resonance in the exhaust that oddly enough was fixed by putting the stock tubes back on the airbox, will probably wrap them over winter, up to 10 hp seems reasonable with a little less bottom end but higher top(less back pressure) also did cat delete and side pipe conversion plus fidanza and lighter clutch plate so am really able to zip up the revs. figure losing 30lbs off my carcass is a better weight gain for my poor car

[plumcrazy]

hiss, did you use the stock heat shields ? that would have helped the heat

[Troublemaker]

Do the heat shields from the cast manifolds fit the tubular manifolds or are they different?

[Hiss Highness]

my stock shields did fit over the new headers, still gonna try wrapping over winter break

[99RT10]

Better would be to ceramic coat the headers and then use the stock heat shields.

[JonB ~ PartsRack]

Our Own JTCone was one of the very first to test fit and run these on her 97 GTS.
It was a "Viper Days First" as I remember, and an clear advantage. Henry Cone is a detailed, obssessive-nit-picker and shared the project years ago on the old site. My recall is very close: 23 lbs weight savings! +12 HP. 439 stainless runs 220f hotter than cast.

And YES the ribbed tubes do stop that shorty-header resonance reverberation. And YES this mod can be made to retro-fit GEN 1 as well, if you grind the header tie-bars a bit to clear the headbolts

[Troublemaker]

That's all good informarion. It seems like some cheap HP and weight loss, which cheap and HP usually aren't words that are used together when talking about Vipers.

[RTTTTed]

LOL, I thought this thread was about tubing Intake manifolds, lol.

Port matching and align honing will both save weight and add hp too.

Thanks for posting some actual numbers Jon. I had reported to me as little as 5hp and as much as 20hp. I understood the biggest advantages of the tubing headers was that they didn't crack, which was common on the cast iron exh. manifolds.

Heat shields are pretty easy to build if you want to. Use thin polished SS or a little thicker polished aluminium.

I wrote a How To (www.thevipergarage.com) on venting the cowl piece and that is supposed to reduce underhood heat by 15F. Although the weight savings is miniscule the modification is free unless you pay someone else to do it.

[Ron]

Not to add to the confusion but I made the switch from cast to shorty also. Dyno'd both on the same dyno, different days, and lost 0.8 hp, corrected.

Do it for the weight, not for the power in my opinion.

[Troublemaker]

That's interesting. I wonder how much of that is just the tuning. The free flowing exhaust is going to lean out the A/F ratio. Now if the car was tested on a nice cool, dry day with a good DA, could it end up being more than the stock tune can compensate for? I am trying to shave weight so this might end up happening either way.

[ChiViper1]

I know you mentioned its not for power, but if its a cost concern an you are already planning to do the mounts, I would look for a cheap set of used aftermarkets IMHO

[Ron]

If you take a good look at the cast manifolds versus the shorties, I don't see freer flowing - The shorties have some significant obstructions to facilitate the mounting bolts. I've never heard of anything but anecdotal evidence that they do in fact flow better and my dyno runs did nothing to convince me otherwise. Sorry to be a contrarian.

On the heat shields, they are different. How good the cast shields work on the shorties I do not know as I swapped both.

[Cratica]

The best way to save weight on your Viper? Eat less. :)

[Disturbed]

I just so happen to have a set from a 2001 forsale dirt cheap if you want to try it. :D