4Sforlife

Need some help in deciding which header to go with. Currently I have a 997.2 4s with Evomit tune, performance air filter, Gundo hack, center muffler bypass and I want more power. Love the car but want a bit more bite. interested in a cat header but anyone tired the sole or fabspeed and can provide some insight as to powerband, noise, durability, does is pass inpection and etc. Mainly i'm interested in which one to get. Please comment only if you have tried. thanks

Don Assaf

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Petza914

As you're doing your research only consider equal length long tube headers with a proper merging collector. The equal length eliminates internal turbulence by allowing the exhaust pulses to sequence correctly.

Post pics of those you're considering and I can tell you which are good designs and which aren't.

I have the Fabspeeds (part of a full exhaust from them) on my car and it's fantastic, but mine is a .1 and the .2 is a slightly different animal.

Both those are good companies so probably fine with either selection.

voidopolis

My 997.2 has Fabspeed from the headers (sport headers) all the way back. Build quality is quite good - sound is great. 7th speed @ 2k RPM on the freeway is something I avoid - but I spend very little time there - just pop it down to 6th and enjoy. They claim "13 whp and 16 ft-lbs. of torque at 4500rpm" with their sport headers. I have not been on a dyno to validate the numbers and I do not currently have a tune. They claim a bigger numbers with their race headers "27 whp and 37 ft/lbs of tq at 3800 RPM, 27 whp and 26 ft/lbs of tq at 5500RPM" - but I needed CATS as I need to pass inspection. GL with your choice!

Kuhl997.2!

Buy a turbo for a bit more power. Equal length headers may add a few horsepower in the upper RPM range at the expensive of loosing some in the lower RPM with hopefully a change to some degree in the exhaust note loudness tone how ever you want to quantify the change. It is not likely you will notice the change as it is so small compared to the total horsepower and torque of the engine before you added the exhaust other than driving it more aggressively because it sounds different better louder different etc. Real horsepower is only going to be felt changing the camshaft, intake, lightening the valves and other internal engine components and increasing the displacement which for most is super cost prohibitive. The actual gain of horsepower and torque of multiple aftermarket products is never the sum of their claims. One of the absolutely more inexpensive ways to increase the perception of increased horsepower is to shed weight. Remove the rear seats, all the plastic fiddlly bits upfront, the AC, stereo amps sub woofer and speakers. Purchase a light weight battery and find some forged wheels, well forged wheels are kinda expensive. I am sure others can chime in here but I would venture to guess the Fabspeed headers are best when used in conjunction of their complete system
​​​​​​. Cheers

Fabspeed Motorsport

While I do recommend, upgrading the rear section as well, the 200cel cats are a fantastic place to start!

Check out this customer video of our HJS catted headers and his OEM PSE system.

Recruiter_Bruno

So I've gone through a couple headers on my 997.2.
Started with Top Speed (Chinese) with high flow cats as they were cheap and had decent reviews here on Rennlist.
They fit okay (needed some minor tweaks) and sounded great.
But on my second track day I noticed the car was really down on power and sounded funny.
I drove home slowly and the next day my mechanic figured out what happened.
The cat material on one side completely broke apart and was clogging the system.
So we drilled them out completely and made them catless.
But the sound was just too loud for what I wanted and I could smell gas pretty often.

At the same time a set of used Fabspeed Headers (with high HJS flow cats) came up for sale in the classified and I grabbed them up.
They have been perfect.
Fit was bang on.
Sound is amazing but not as loud as cat-less.
No drone.
No smell.
And I've put 4 track days on them and they have been perfect so far.

Did I notice any power gains??? Not really.
But I don't regret it at all.
From my signature you can see the rest of my mods...

msequence

Love the car Bruno and thanks for sharing your experience here. Also from Ontario, Canada.

Not to derail the thread but I've been considering the Fabspeed Headers & Intake. If you could only do one, which would you recommend?

Petza914

Headers will make a bigger performance difference than the intake. The intake will add more sound, but eliminating the turbulence in the stock header collectors so the exhaust pulses can properly sequence is a bigger improvement than the intake airflow. Put another way, the stock airbox and filter compared to CAI is less of a performance impediment than the stock headers vs equal length long tube versions with a proper merging collector. Even the X51 header is an inferior flow design compared to a proper aftermarket long tube version like the Fabspeed.

Recruiter_Bruno

Agree with Petza (as usual LOL)
The intake is purely sound.
The sound is amazing though.
Gives it almost a V8 growl during wide open throttle.
I switched my filters to AFE dry filters though.
In traffic it may lose you some power but once you get moving I feel there is plenty of air being pushed into the engine bay (from the top and bottom) that you won't lose any.
I wouldn't give mine up.

The headers will free up power.
I found myself hitting the rev limiter quicker after the headers.
And the sound and burble you get is fantastic.
But even with the Fabspeed headers with high flow cats, you will get engine codes from time to time.
My Foxwell took care of them quickly but in the end you will need an ECU flash or possibly the Fabspeed Universal O2 spacer should get rid of the problem.

Petza914

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Interesting - I don't get any Exhaust related codes with my setup. Equal length long tube headers, 200 cell X-cat, Valved mufflers, RUF tips. Really, the cats should be the only thing that could throw codes and I don't get any. I have gotten one many years ago but that's because I had a loose cap on one of my RUF intake manifolds and it was allowing unmetered air into the engine so the O2 sensors haven't been tuned out by RUF and are still monitoring things, but I never get any codes. Also, not running an O2 spacers.

Fabspeed Motorsport

Hey Bruno!

There shouldn't be any CEL issues with our HJS sport headers, shoot me an email and we can try to look into some solutions!