Which Headers for towing?
 

Well, actually only tow a 12k 5th wheel once or twice a month. 2003 2wd Allison 8.1 CC, cold air intake, Hooker Areo chamber muffler, ported Throttle body, Predator tune, 3:73 gears, 285/60 18's. Ready to get a set of Headers looking at Gisbon shorty(~400) or Stainlesswork Long tube(~770 dollars). Bang for the buck...Towing RPM is ~2100 @70 and will never see RPM's above 4800. What are your feelings...

shorties are worthless... dont waste you money on them. Stainless works has a nice kit.

Deff the LT's more TQ than shorties.

thorley thorley thorley

Stainless Works !!!...those are beautiful and well built headers !!

Why never above 4800rpm ?? I used to turn a 454 in a '94 I had to 6200rpm pretty regularly (every stop light actually), the 8.1 will turn alot more than 4800 without problems

I've heard the allison doesn't like to be spun much higher than 5k

They say the 4L80e has a max input of 5200rpm too.....how many of us listen to that ??

It's possible that the Allison won't take the rpm's.....but I'd bet it'll take a little more than 5k and still survive

shortyies are what you want for towing. long tubes are for drag raceing they make all the power at the top of the rpm range.the shorties make there power down low.

if you would like your big block to last at all,you should not 4800 rpm.i have seen stock 350 come apart at 5000 rpm. if the motor is built ,then i would say fine, but stock no way. just my 2 cents

????

Shorties actually aren't considered good for much at all except staying emissions legal. LT's build ALOT more torque than a shortie ever will.

What 350 did you see come apart at 5 grand ???....I've been turning both big and small block chevy motors (stock or not) to 6000+rpm's my whole life, while it's pointless to do on some motors because of their cam/head setups I've never seen a motor come apart at 5k just because it "wasn't built to go that high" I currently shift a stock botom end Gen III motor at 6100rpms...and would go higher if I had the heads/cam to make use of the higher RPM's. A stock 8.1l will handle a bit more than 4800rpms reliably...I'd stay closer to 5k than 6k but I REALLY don't think he's got to be afraid of mashing the pedal and letting it spin a little....the heads/cam combo in a stock 8.1l might not make it worth spinning it any higher but it'll stay together if he does

maybe you should call some header companys and ask them how they work. they may be can so you some dyno runs . any time you reduce backpressure you lose torque of the bottom end.
the 350 that put a rod threw the pan was out of a 97 chevy pickup.and yes you can run the motor past the torque curve, if you want to lose power.
i am sure that gm would like you to keep over reving the motor. there stock price is way down and i am sure they would like to sell some more parts. it might bring the price of there stock back up.