How much will headers help?

[djgbsbj]

I have the 2.5. Will headers be worth the money and time? Can anyone say how much the hp increase might be?
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green crack pictures

[Brad The Best]

pretty close to 0 . honestly you might see 3-5 hp .

[hutchman]

Jp magazine has an article this month on some of the past builds they have had. One of these builds was a 2.5 liter.

For this build they used a Banks header, Banks Stinger Exhaust, Hi Flow Cat, a 4 liter throttle body, and an AEM Brute Force Intake and Filter. After these parts were installed, they managed a 14% power increase. I will now quote the article.

"....the power came on at a much higher rpm and driveability actually suffered. In reality, it was a much nicer driving vehicle with the stock drive train. Live and learn."

For real world performance, you cannot beat lower gears for the money spent. Lower gears take the available torque of the engine and multiply it to the rear wheels resulting in improved performance from the stock engine.

Save your money until you can afford to re-gear.

[djgbsbj]

Well it has 4.10 gearing. I know thats pretty low and i figured it was a good gearing 4 my jeep. Is there one that would be better?
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box vaporizer

[Drake69]

Depending on the year and type of axle, you could probably go down to 4.88, though I don't know if your carrier will take it. Even if it can, you'll still need an axle mechanic to set the gears properly, otherwise it'll get REAL messy inside that pumpkin with grinding gears and slipping motions, not to mention the occasional blowup.
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[hutchman]

A 4.10 carrier will work with 4.88s and 4.88s are as low as you can go in a Dana 30. In my opinion, you would benefit from the 4.88s, but drake is correct - You will have to pay someone to install them correctly. Of course if you are going to do it right, you should do a Super 30/35 which is more money but will hold up much better to abuse.

But if you are going to spend the 2K/axle for the Super Kits, plus install, maybe you should consider Dana 44s for an extra 400 - 800 each.

The spending never ends..............

[djgbsbj]

Well how much will i benefit from changing it to 4.88? If i went that low, since i have a 2.5 wouldn't it only do like 60mph?
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Mazda R360 history

[hutchman]

4.88s are 16% lower than the 4.10s so your engine rpm will increase approximately 16% for a given road speed. If your engine is turning 3000 rpm at 70, it would be turning 3480 after the gear change. If you are math challenged, take your indicated engine rpm at a given road speed and multiply it by 1.16 to get the new engine speed following the gear change.

It should actually make it easier to go highway speeds than with the 4.10s due to the increased torque multiplication.