Banks makes the long tube headers for our SD's. I have a set on my truck.

I approached this whole thing differently. My studs were shot and I had a head gasket leaking oil. Living in NY state with all the salt they use during the winter I was looking for a full stainless steel exhaust system that has a rust through warranty. That is what I a got with the Banks PowerPack. Performance gains were secondary for me. I have spent way too much money on aluminumized systems that would rust through in 2-3 years.

 

looks like you all have it covered. i have banks headers and y-pipe on my 01, definate gains on the low end, mid and upper rpms. i realy noticed the difference in the low end when offroading in high range, in stock form, with 35s in sand, it was almost impossible to get passed the flat spot and spin to 5k. after the install, i have no problem spinning her to the limiter. a couple of reasons for going with banks, jba dyno graph showed some good gains but if i remember correctly, it was above 3k. as a matter of fact, their graph showed a drop below stock at anything under 3k, banks showed gains over stock from off idle to redline. banks offers the thickest flanges, 0.625" (5/8"), very robust, the banks headers are also tuned units, the others were not. the 2 piece y-pipe is another huge benefit which eases installation. my truck runs hard, very pleased with the performance gains.. hope this info helps, good luck.....

 

oh yea, one more thing, banks uses ball and cup to connect the y-pipe to the header collector, not a flange with gaskets that can and will blow out, a huge plus in my opinion...

 

Not to down the Banks setup, but my $180 cheapo eBay headers are ball-and-socket type, just like stock - they directly replace the stock manifolds and bolt up to the stock y-pipe - if you bend it a bit

I notice NO degradation of low-end torque (and believe me, I know what the low-end feels like - it launches like a rocket) and definitely feel the difference at 3000RPMs and up.

The only difference, I feel, between shorties and long-tube are, shorties are "better than stock". Long-tube headers are the way to go, especially in exhaust scavenging (as long as they are equal-length), all across the RPM range.

The shorties are not the greatest, because of the unequal length runners. But they definitely flow better than stock manifolds. And didn't seem to hurt the low-end at all...

But that might not be entirely true. I haven't dyno'd it before or after ...

 

My only beef with the Banks is that a late model with the flange behind the crossmemeber, you have to cut the pipe before the cat for install. Kind of a bummer if you want to go back to stock.

 

The headers offered by banks for the 6.8l F-series are not what I consider "long tube" headers. The motorhome headers are long tubes. The collector is way down in the chassis horizontal to the ground. What they offer for the SD is shorties with a seperate y-pipe.


For what you get Banks is way overpriced compared to boing the mods seperate. You pay for the convenience of a kit.

 

Maybe just for our discussion, we could consider headers like JBA, Gibson, E-bay, Ford Racing, shorties because they use the stock y-pipe. Headers like Thorley, Banks, Borla that use their own supplied y-pipe are long tube.

On a seperate note, I thought I read that Borla no longer makes the headers for our V-10. I checked their website and could not find them. Anyone heard different?

 

I guess it all depends on a persons definition of long tubes.

I understand what you mean.

I'm still thinking old school when it comes to headers/manifolds. I never really considered the Y-pipe as part of the header.

I too looked at borla's site and couldn't find anything. I think they problem gave up making them because of competition from other companies.

I liked that the Borla's were 304 S.S. however 18Ga. tubes were a little thin.

 

Sure you can do an entire exhaust system including headers for cheaper, but a lot of those systems do not have a rust through warranty which as I stated was my #1 concern.

I have run Borla before, but Charlie had problems with his headers and in checking their system both the headers and y-pipe were hit or miss on being able to get a hold of them. Now it seems you can't even get the headers unless you get the Ford Racing ones which last I knew were made by Borla.

 

which ones on ebay are you guys getting on ebay? there seems to be three different companies selling them.

 

I run Banks headers on my 2001. I didn't have to do anything tricky to get them in. I was putting on new shocks at the time and worked from the wheel wells

 

But they all look the same. Same supplier, me-thinks.

The ones I got had what looked like a better gasket - metal-faced, instead of what looked like paper.

Now, I see only the ones with metal-faced gaskets. Go figure.

 

Ditto on Gale Banks.

 

I have been thinking about headers for my 02 F-350 for a while now. My concern is durability so I want stainless--salt in N.E. Ohio is a PITA. Plus the broken studs that I have (and have had replaced once). I have read about the Banks set up and think it looks and sounds like what I want. My question is does anyplace sell just the headers from Banks, or do you have to get the Power Pack kit??

 

You can get just the headers/y-pipe setup seperatly from Banks and several online stores. I would do a search. I looked at Banks while shopping for headers and found a few places that sell the just the headers and y.