Welcome to the Corvette Forums at the Corvette Action Center!

Diff btween TPIS & Exotic Long Tubes?

Maybe Tube routing or the Tall/ short mounting holes.

I don't know for sure since I am using Hooker Headers on mine
 
exotic

im thinking headers. dont know about "exotic". but if we are talking about shorties vs long tube big diff.
 
I have never seen the exotic headers but I have the TPIS on mine and they are very high quality and fit perfectly.
 
Re: exotic

steve1ph said:
im thinking headers. dont know about "exotic". but if we are talking about shorties vs long tube big diff.

What are the main differences (other than the obvious :L ) I've heard that long tube gives you louder/deeper sound, but what are the other differences. Also, I have looked for Long tubes for my 93 and can't find any, anyone have any ideas?
 
You should pick up a December issue of Car Craft they have a feature article on headers. Shorty headers tend to make more horse power than long tubes and long tubes make more torque.
Since on the street torque is king if you are going to use the headers on a street car the long tubes would be best.
Some brands require mods to make them fit a vette the TPIS headers with the L98 angle plug heads makes changing plugs easy I have read on the corvette forum of guy's pounding dents in their Hooker headers to get them to clear the spark plugs. Be very careful some brands fit small block chevy's and they sell the same thing for different models annd you have to make them fit no such issues with the tpis they were designed for a vette. Like I said before I have no experience with the Exotic headers so can't comment on them. When I bought my 89 L98 changing the spark plugs took me about 4hours with all the stock componets but with AFR L98 angle plug head and the TPIS Headers changing plugs takes 20 minutes.
 
Black Bart, I am glad you had no problems in fitting yours. Personally, I had to spend a day grinding out the weld beads from the runners and bolt holes in the flange because they were out of alignment with the bolt sleeves, and had to dimple a couple of runners for bolt head clearance because the tubes were canted rearward from not being jigged up properly before welding. There are several of us with complaints about TPIS header crap over on Corvetteforum. If I knew then what I know now, I would have tried the Exotic Muscle headers. I bought the TPIS long tube, stainless steel, ceramic coated for over $700. I expected better!
After contacting them about the problems they just reacted with "So?" Word is getting out on them. Like I said, several have stated similar experiences with them.
 
You are the first one that I have heard of that was not happy with tpis headers several others have had very good results but I guess they don't all turn out that way. The aftermarket should be called 50-50 since have of it don't fit or don't work as advertised.
 
I would have simply retuned them or exhanged them! I had that problem with some parts from SLP. They didn't fit so I returned them. End of problem, moved on. I don't live too far from TPIS and they've always been good people and know what they're doing. If you buy a shirt and it doesn't fit, you don't tear it, you return it.
 
RdRacer, at first it just looked like the runner tubes needed to have the weld beads cleaned up so I figured I would take the time to do that. After 2 or 3 hours of carefully cleaning those up, I discovered that the bolt holes did not align with the heads. So, since I had already ground on the tubes, I figured the tubes were mine since they were now modified. Of course, after cleaning up the holes in the flange, I realized that the bolt head had hardly any clearance and required further dimpling. But what really cranked my tail was the cross threaded hole in the head because the bolt was just a smidgen out of alignment too far. I then had to retap the hole after banging the heck out of the tube and grinding the shoulder completely off of the bolt and part of the hex head to get it to go in. In other words, as I have previously stated, had I known from the start all that would have been necessary, I would not have gotten the grinder out. I would have sent them back before the first grinding.
 

Corvette Forums

Not a member of the Corvette Action Center?  Join now!  It's free!

Help support the Corvette Action Center!

Supporting Vendors

Dealers:

MacMulkin Chevrolet - The Second Largest Corvette Dealer in the Country!

Advertise with the Corvette Action Center!

Double Your Chances!

Our Partners

Back
Top Bottom