I’ve seen conflicting information regarding long tube vs short tube headers. Low end torque is what I’m going after, what would you guys recommend?

thanks!

 

You may fall into the rabbit hole. If you modify one end, you may have to consider the intake side of it, and then you may have to look at the ECU mapping to compensate for the difference on the the intake and the exhaust if you're committed.

Like you said, you need city low end performance, torque is what you need there and your butt dyno is telling you lost enough to notice. I totally understand the ticket level speed part of it, 100 MPH on the interstate is just an easy cruise for 911s, you have to watch your speed.

Your money and time, there are plenty aftermarket vendors that will sell you their stuff. You won't feel the actual results until after purchase and install, then you have what you have or revert back to stock and have a bunch of parts that represent a considerable expense.

I ordered mine with the Porsche PSE and that's enough for me. In my 991.2 S4, there's all sorts of grunt from just above idle and the car lifts like you described yours prior to the mod, with a reasonable level of sound and fury. Obviously mine has turbos, so different, but I'm leaving mine stock, plenty happy.

 

yeah, I wish I knew about that before the purchase. I had the PSE before, and while it produced an amazing sound, I thought there was some room for improvement. I’d rather keep the low end torque and give up more sound if that what it comes down to.

I’m thinking about reverting back to stock and maybe adding headers if I get confirmation that there will be no loss of low end torque with just headers.

 

In my experience most people have no idea of the difference between torque and hp. Indeed, most think they are driving on hp in the city when they are actually driving on torque. It's one of the reasons that my 991.2 GTS is my go to car in the city...bottom end torque......even though the HP is less that my RS, my GT3 Touring etc.

 

Yeah I’ve come to realize that bottom end torque is the most important thing to me when it comes to performance.
Any 911 owner that doesn’t track their car will rarely if ever be able to take full advantage of the top end of the power range

 

BSO is spot on. An engine is an air pump. If you open up one end of it (exhaust) you have to open up the other end (intake) and then add fuel (Remap / Throttle Bodies, etc) to all run in balance. It most definitely falling down the Rabbit Hole, been there many times on cars and motorcycles. Some aftermarket exhausts are tuned (Akrapovic, Tubi, etc) to not negatively affect the performance, others are guys that make loud pipes with no engineering.

Headers (and things like free flow cats) in my opinion, will add more flow on the exhaust but not likely to solve your issue. You have to set the whole car up, not just keep opening up the exhaust.

My suggestion is to not do any more mods and just drive the car. The cars internal computer will adjust somewhat, and you will adjust somewhat. In a few months time you won't notice it.

 

Just headers with high-flow cats will definitely give you some nice low-end shove from a healthy torque-boost, cannot speak to performance when paired with more exhaust modifications. I also assume a tune would compliment the headers nicely but not exactly sure if they work perfectly together.

 

yes, SOUL headers with high flow cats. I didn’t get the catless option.