Aight thanks for all the feedback. Yea my header has like a ball look on the end so i dont see how a gasket could work on that. I tightend those bolts up tight. its sounds better but i can still here it. im gunna look under the car and check for leaks near the end of the cat. lata

 

Cool man - hope it works out for ya - if you want to test it get a small piece of paper and hold it near the area you think the leak is with the car running - it should flutter if there is a leak

 

i sure hope you werent referring to me in this post. if so, i dont think youve ever looked at a dyno comparison on a neon for long tube vs short tube. in the neons rpm range, the longtube will gain (both hp and tq) over the entire rpm range over a short tube.
while yes, primary lengths determine how the powerband "shifts" its still been proven that a good long tube will gain EVERYWHERE over a short tube header on the neon.

ps. keep in mind that the pacesetter header is "tuned" for 18,000 rpm. something i doubt any neon has reached yet.

 

hmm you think if i put some liquid soap around it and start it to see if it bubbles would work to? I doubt its leaking from the end of the cat. I went to tighten it and i couldnt get it to budge so i guess thats tight enuff. Ill see tommarow what the deal is.

 

Ok - I admit that I forgot to mention one thing - cam profile, although I did in another post - I dunno what I was thinking but with enough rpm, lift, duration, and overlap a short tube header should, in theory, be better because the pulses are occuring very near each other and the pressure drop is less - I honestly never have looked at ANY dyno charts for header comparison on neons, never had any ambitions to, if I did I wouldnt have bought an ACR.... my car has a decent enough header already - I'd rather spend my time and effort on sorting out the alignment, tire pressures, and shock adjusments because those are alot more important for what I do - I was just busting your ***** to make sure you werent one of those types who looks at the number and not the whole picture and if you were I was gonna pop you with the question as to why I can drag 1g ACR or R/T and beat it by a half-car length everytime despite having the same "claimed" 150 peak horsepower and a 200 lb + weight disadvantage....

 

yeah the magnum header isnt bad at all. sure it can be improved on, but its not bad at all.

i like how you say "claimed" hp yeah its no real secret that the 1g dohc seems to have been slightly overrated at 150hp. and that 140hp is more like what they actually put out.

but with that said, ive seen most 2g acrs/rts run a 15.9-16.0 in the quarter mile stock.. i honestly havent heard of many that varied from that time. but, on the 1g acrs/rts.. wow what a variance. ive heard of acrs doing as low as 15.2s stock.. to rts as slow as 16.5 stock. thats quite a variance.

now, a different cam profile isnt going to make one header style better than the other. i dont care what cam you toss in there, a pacesetter header will never outperform a longtube (afx, kirk, blackdog, fast fabs.. just a few examples of long tube headers for the neon) given the same cam.

now, im not saying short tube headers arent worth it.. because you can still make plenty of power with one. Don Howard made ~208wp using a pacesetter header (1g dohc) .. thats quite impressive.

i tried looking on neons.org last night to find some of the header dyno comparisons, and i couldnt find the ones id seen in the past. all i could come across was the BD w/merge collector vs FF w/dump collector header comparison. ill keep looking around tho.

 

ok few things here - I think that 15.2 quarter for a stock acr is slightly optimistic, whoever you heard that from may have been a little full on themselves. I did manage to sqeeze a 15.7 out of mine when it was brand new but I could never touch it again, consistently it was a 15.9 but sometimes as high as 16.2 if i'd really botch the launch. I think the reason for all this variance is the dodge ecm's, they seem to be very tempermental on their ignition mapping ( I sometimes have days where the computer decides to get crazy with the advance I start to hear quite a bit of knock despite running 93 - when this happens I clear the computer immediately) and the flexy torque strut bushings making it very difficult to get a good launch and near impossible at the strip where there is tremendous grip at the start due to pro stockers laying down sheets of sticky rubber. Everyone knows to fix the torque struts with inserts but the computer isnt that easy - im still pondering what to do there before I unexpectedly get that big knock that puts a hole thru my piston!! I also wasnt to crazy about the stock clutch, needless to say that was replaced as soon as I had the money to get it outa there.

As for the cams - the short tube headers ARE ridiculously short are just way too short for any profile out there or any profile period (you said the pacesetter was tuned for 18,000 rpm and I believe it, the cam would be cooking along at 9,000 - which is basically like saying the valves are always open haha - which makes sense, the shortest header would provide the highest flow due to the least pressure drop - would look good on the flow bench but never work in reality) - I think the only reason dodge made them that way was to keep the cat close and get quicker warm up and lower emissions, which are fairly stringent this day and age. You even noted yourself before that the primary length will shift the powerband, well so do cam profiles - although the valve sizes and ports will be another limiting factor I neglected to mention previously. Im not arguing here - just keep in mind that the cam is the most important part of your engine breathing, its the brains in whole deal. My previous statements werent any kind of claim - I was just making a gereral statement as to the trends that should be expected, which you seem like you have a good grasp on. The fact of the matter is that if the header was on the front side of the engine as it used to be in days of yore- the medium tube headers you talk of would most likely be considered "short" - top end headers and the longer ones would be more medium length, and there would be the possibility of a slightly longer 4 to 2 to 1 system making use of the cylinder running mates at higher rpm while still keeping the overall length for low to mid-range.

I have heard through the grape vine that many touring class road racers swear by the kirk header which you classify as medium length. I'm assuming that they are slightly better in the top end? Dig up those dyno charts for the medium to long tube comparison and ill look myself - seen as how I'm gonna be running the car in street prepared now I might buy the best long tube I can after I get the suspension sorted out and the get a torsen - quaife most likely - limited slip (they are first on my list because I have to get the wee power I have to the ground before I think about any more). Its going to be really hard to make my car competitve so I might need that extra bit. Also I'd like to get a computer that would eliminate my rev limiter or raise it and keep more consistent spark advancement - not that I will be revving it all that high all time but i sometimes bounce off mine at the end of a long slalom and I would lose more in a shift than to just ride it out.

 

its really not impossible. especially if it was a very light '95. ive personally seen a '97 dohc mtx acr run a 15.3 completely stock, so ive no doubt that a lighter one could run a 15.2.
the kirk (or TTI which is a copy of the kirk) i do like to call a "medium" length, tho many places will call it long. its a decent header, but is major design flaw is the way the flex coupling is for it. many poeple will tell you to cut off its coupling and weld on a stainless steel flex joint instead, and id agree. the primary lengths arent quite as long as say the AFX or Fast Fabs or Blackdog headers, but still lengthy enough to bring a good chunk of the powerband down to where the neon can use it.
one person i know fairly well, Freelivin91 on neonspeed.com, uses the kirk header.. and he really likes it. hes pretty big into autox as well, so you should probably get a hold of him sometime.

being that you have a 2g, i believe the only option you have for an ecu is an afx unit from www.howellautomotive.com
im not sure on which years have an ecu available, nor if magnums have one.. so if they dont have an ecu for you, i apologize. unfortunately, the reason is because i just dont check the 2g stuff as much as i probably should.

oh yeah, cams are definately a huge improvement for performance. this is why im running the crane #18 "drag grind" cams on my 1g r/t

 

I think I'm going to look into the longer tube designs, I don't plan on road racing this car as it is my daily driver - I'd like to buy an old R/T or ACR for that so I dont feel so bad when I bounce it off another car or the wall - I dunno about the 'puters - that damn dual runner intake I have is a blessing and a curse cus I need a controller that will handle the servo motor on that thing - I checked it out a while ago, like back in 02, and they didn't have anything that would work on the magnums - I had this grassroots motorsports mag that had an article about the new acr's and they had another controller from mopar that did everything I wanted but I don't think they ever put on sale to the public - I think it was an emissions issue [:@] - I think I may hassle dodge and see if they can do something for me - too bad I don't have my own magazine, then i'd be set... I think I'm gettin an msd ignition module, that will solve everything

 

hrm yeah. i just checked howellautomotive and they dont have any ecu's for the magnums that sucks.

i mean, im sure you might be able to use a non-mag ecu.. and just add a window switch to open the secondaries.. but i dunno how well the ignition timing and a/f ratios would work on the magnum motor to be honest.

and yeah, that still sucks about the mopar computers for the 2gs.. i wonder why theyve still not released them yet. theyve had em for a good while now.