Headers are one of the easiest bolt-on accessories you can use to improve an engines performance. The goal of headers is to make it easier for the engine to push exhaust gases out of the cylinders
The gasin the cylinder burns and expands during this stroke, generating power.
The other three strokes are necessary evils required to make the power
stroke possible. If these three strokes consume power, they are a drain
on the engine.
During the exhaust stroke, a good way for an engine to lose power is through back pressure.
The exhaust valve opens at the beginning of the exhaust stroke, and
then the piston pushes the exhaust gases out of the cylinder. If there
is any amount of resistance that the piston has to push against to
force the exhaust gases out, power is wasted. Using two exhaust valves
rather than one improves the flow by making the hole that the exhaust
gases travel through larger.In a normal engine, once the exhaust gases exit the cylinder they end up in the exhaust manifold.
In a four-cylinder or eight-cylinder engine, there are four cylinders
using the same manifold. From the manifold, the exhaust gases flow into
one pipe toward the catalytic converter and the muffler.
It turns out that the manifold can be an important source of back
pressure because exhaust gases from one cylinder build up pressure in
the manifold that affects the next cylinder that uses the manifold.
The idea behind an exhaust header is to eliminate
the manifold's back pressure. Instead of a common manifold that all of
the cylinders share, each cylinder gets its own exhaust pipe. These
pipes come together in a larger pipe called the collector.
The individual pipes are cut and bent so that each one is the same
length as the others. By making them the same length, it guarantees
that each cylinder's exhaust gases arrive in the collector spaced out
equally so there is no back pressure generated by the cylinders sharing
the collector.
The gasin the cylinder burns and expands during this stroke, generating power.
The other three strokes are necessary evils required to make the power
stroke possible. If these three strokes consume power, they are a drain
on the engine.
During the exhaust stroke, a good way for an engine to lose power is through back pressure.
The exhaust valve opens at the beginning of the exhaust stroke, and
then the piston pushes the exhaust gases out of the cylinder. If there
is any amount of resistance that the piston has to push against to
force the exhaust gases out, power is wasted. Using two exhaust valves
rather than one improves the flow by making the hole that the exhaust
gases travel through larger.In a normal engine, once the exhaust gases exit the cylinder they end up in the exhaust manifold.
In a four-cylinder or eight-cylinder engine, there are four cylinders
using the same manifold. From the manifold, the exhaust gases flow into
one pipe toward the catalytic converter and the muffler.
It turns out that the manifold can be an important source of back
pressure because exhaust gases from one cylinder build up pressure in
the manifold that affects the next cylinder that uses the manifold.
The idea behind an exhaust header is to eliminate
the manifold's back pressure. Instead of a common manifold that all of
the cylinders share, each cylinder gets its own exhaust pipe. These
pipes come together in a larger pipe called the collector.
The individual pipes are cut and bent so that each one is the same
length as the others. By making them the same length, it guarantees
that each cylinder's exhaust gases arrive in the collector spaced out
equally so there is no back pressure generated by the cylinders sharing
the collector.