I bought my lightning headers from you guys,they worked great for 5 years on my blown 502 then blown 540,I just "outgrew" them when I went from 750 hp to 945,I'm not *****ing,I was able to sell them used for a decent price. The stainless marine hi tq 3's have been great also,they just look less sexy with more function,Smitty

Right know, and i dont mean to pi$$ anybody off.

I think the SM HT III is the best on the market, lightweight big runners ,dont break. I have seen them on 1400 HP blowermotors working great.
I have seen them in blown up engines hot ass hell and still run with no leaks, act. mine .

The looks of them ,,,,,,,,,,,,,i think they look great, they also make the same header for a 34 centerline , so you can fit them in there.

$$$$ wise they are very in expensive too, so what is there to think about ?
+ Brownie at SM and everybody else there are bretty cool and help where they can.

Just my 2 C, but i have seen alot of the others break.
Most of them due to not enuff cooling SS needs cooling aluminum needs it also but not that much since its getting ridd of heat alot faster.
Damn i'm smart. LOL

Probably the bottom line in this decision is what are you trying to accomplish and at what cost. If you are looking at maximizing hp then in a naturally aspirated application you should be looking towards a "tuned" exhaust with at least equal runner length? To say all are created equall is BS. There have only been a couple actual comparisons done and that was back in the 97-98 time frame. I believe Fountain hired Innovation to look at some different offerings as did Volvo. That was when Volvo had the 600 hp packages back in 97 or 98? There was maybe 40 hp difference between good and bad and that was only looking at hp 500's up to 5200 rpm or so. There would have been a bigger difference yet if they would have looked at applications in a higher rpm range. Eickert's website had some of the data and Hot Boats did a couple comparisons. What I found interesting was when you looked at some of the IR 4 into 1 configs due to the large difference in their runner length, they really didn't do all that well.

i WISH i HAD 800 hp!!! I still have a new set of Lightnings with 02 bungs $1700!! What a deal!

Thats the point,,,,,,,the Stainless work on both and gain performance,,,,on N/A and Blowermotors.

The runners are ( i think 22" long ) and have all the same volume.

I know of a lot of big power boats running wet exhaust. I even run downturns on my 1400's CMI headers are the way to go. Manifolds are for cars.

How the heck did we get talking about manifolds here anyways? Wasn't the question about headers? The fact is Yes S/M Gen 3 manifolds are excellent quality and perform super and Brownie is quite possibly the nicest guy in the world. But we were talking about headers. A little clarification here "Dry" means no water enters the exhaust stream. The pipes are still water jacketed thus cooled. No water in the exhaust stream means no-reversion. Most engines once again "MOST" engines with a camshaft exceeding .240 of duration @.050 will require a dry exhaust system. Thus anything making more than about 650 horsepower with a header will likely require a dry tailpipe.

can you put muflers on these?

Of course you can, we even sell em http://www.cpperformance.com/SearchR...CategoryID=182

Can anyone tell what is a CMI Elbow Split Top?