Intake enhancements are only as good as the exhaust allows them to be. All the air and fuel in the world on the intake side won't make more power if the exhaust system can't pump out the by-products of combustion efficiently. Though the '04 GTO's stock exhaust system performed well enough to handle light upgrades and did pretty well with the ProCharger we installed, we still felt there was a lot of power left on the table.
Since Stainless Works has a gorgeous set of long-tube headers just for the '04-plus Goat, we thought we'd try them in an effort to liberate a few more ponies. Beginning with premium stainless steel, CNC-cut 31/48-inch-thick flanges are welded to 1.75-inch primaries that flow into 3-inch collectors. These long-tubes are bound to wake up any Goat and add a musclecar tone. The kit we're installing on our '04 GTO (PN GTOHDR) retails for about $1,364 (at press time), including Random Tech catalytic converters, all the parts and hardware needed for installation, and even O2-sensor extensions!
Follow along as we install a set of Stainless Works long-tube headers for the '04-plus GTO. In Part II, we'll mount an '04-'05 bumper-conversion after-cat system and then dyno the GTO to gauge the improvement.
