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Lightning headers

Brianh

Brianh

Well-known member
Just picked up a brand new set of lightning headers... aren't they purdy? Can not wait for the first fire up and test hit.
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I will have a black set of lightnings for sale. Bought them off a guy that used them for one season. I bought them two weeks ago with intentions of painting them then found these in the exact color I wanted for a good deal. Very good shape. Got 1800 in them. I'd do 1700 to get them down the road. Here is a pic
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Brianh said:
I will have a black set of lightnings for sale. Bought them off a guy that used them for one season. I bought them two weeks ago with intentions of painting them then found these in the exact color I wanted for a good deal. Very good shape. Got 1800 in them. I'd do 1700 to get them down the road. Here is a pic
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That is a screaming deal!
 
That does sound like a great deal. I need to decide if it makes sense to replace my Kodiaks for headers. I can't find much info on the Kodiaks as far as performance results. They are polished aluminum and look great, l just don't know if there is a good or bad to them. Kunkels put them on the boat new so might be worth checking with them.
 
Well, I just realized the blue ones are semi dry and now I'm worried they are gonna be too loud. I've spoken with a few guys about this already. I'm wanting some other people's thoughts as well. Will I notice a huge difference in sound from the black to the blue ones. I believe Corey was running dry lightnings, hopefully he can chime in. I'm worried the fish commission will be hassling me if they are too loud.
 
I have set my Lightnings up 3 ways now. At first they were wet, and they weren't really that loud at all. Louder than stock, but not too hateful. Then I went to dry to the tip where the water was introduced about 1/2" from the end of the exhaust tip. That was louder, but still sounded really good, and if it wasn't for the reversion I was fighting, that would be my personal choice. Then I went totally dry..... wow. The thing is stupid loud!!! At one point last summer I had to get down in the water behind the boat while it was idling, and the only way to describe it is painful. My ears hurt for about 15 minutes after I got back in the boat. It was so bad that I bought a set of Drew Marine Shotgun Mufflers over the winter that I'm going to modify to work with the dry exhaust. I'm hoping it'll take the edge off the sound. The dry exhaust sounds really good inside the boat, but I know its obnoxious to others around me. I think I gave 4 poor old ladies in a pontoon a heart attack last year at the launch ramp. They were docked right behind where I was backed in. I even told them "You might want to plug your ears, this thing is really loud", the one said "Oh its OK honey, my husband has a loud boat, we're used to it". I just shrugged and fired it up, they all screamed, one fell down and one ran to the back of the pontoon holding her ears. Guess her husbands Rinker doesn't sound quite like mine, lol. Luckily, Cumberland doesn't have a sound ordinance, so I don't have to worry about that, and with the Shotgun mufflers, if I want to be obnoxious,(Owner's Rally, LOL) I can lock them open easily.

Looking at the pics of your new blue ones, the water exits out of the fitting in the top, really similar to mine. So you can take and dump that water right back into the exhaust stream before the transom, which will knock the sound down a lot. The other good thing is, if for some reason they are too loud, you can pick up some nice mufflers that don't restrict power at all. The ones I have work on back pressure and are adjustable. When they hit a certain pressure they open up and then the exhaust is wide open, so at full throttle, you lose no power (or sound). I wouldn't be afraid to run the ones you have, just dump the water right back into the exhaust stream before the transom, and you will be fine. Should actually sound pretty darn good!!!
 
Thanks for all the info Corey. From what I can see there are 4 penicil sized holes that dump water out the end up the header to the tips. Seems like the excess water will be pumped out that fitting up top. I hope I'm looking at this right. It seems like it lets a little water thru to cool the tips. I'll try to get a pic, but it's hard to see in there. If I have SOME water being introduced there it shouldn't be terrible from what ur saying.
 
A friend of mine who now owns a dyno.....tested some gibson bullet mufflers he had laying around he used to run on his 1200 hp procharged baja on his stainless marine Gen III dry exhaust. Needed something to quiet the open headers on dyno at his shop. Threw these on and made back to back pulls. ZERO horsepower loss with them. I was there doing some pulls with him last weekend. Without them it was even painful with shooting earmuffs on. Still loud with them on, but took the pain away.

Personally, I will be running a set of turn-downs that slip over the tips when my silent choice will be removed. I got to liking being quiet in the marina but I want the beotches to bark when on plane. Seems to be best of both worlds, just cant make anyone jump at the ramps anymore, but the people in the 50 cruisers will get an ear full when I fly across their wake.
 
Ok, I see how they are now. My guess is they will sound similar to when I had dry to the tip exhaust, which to me sounded awesome. They will be louder than your stock exhaust for sure, but should sound really good!!! I would still try them out first, and if you need mufflers, go that route. Like Ron said, you can get mufflers that don't rob any power, and even if you do loose a couple HP, you'll still be making more HP with muffled headers than you will with stock manifolds!! Can't wait to hear her when you get them on!!
 
Another option would be to make a coupler like this to go from your headers to your tips. That way you could just dump the rest of the water from that fitting into your exhaust stream, and be completely wet so you wouldn't have to run mufflers.

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I still have the black ones that are fully wet. I just want to use the blues ones cuz I love that color. Am I looking at those small holes right? They seem to be there to dump some water to cool the tips. Either way I'm gonna sale a set once I figure out which ones I'm using. By the way that coupler is sweet.
 
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Well I decided to use the black ones which are fully wet. I was worried about the blue ones being too loud and getting pulled over by the fish co. Not sure why but they seem to have been looking in my direction a lot the past 2 seasons. The boat is heading to a guy who is going to tig weld me up a couple custom S pipes out of 304 stainless. I will report back with power gains once I do a test run. The beautiful blue headers are going to a fellow forum member....
 
Visit Keuka Lake some time

Brian you should look into a road trip for our Spring Fun Run on Keuka Lake Saturday 3-June. Very nice campground at the State Park plus B&B's and hotels.
In addition to Fever, Keith, Chris, Mike & myself we will hopefully have the Rochester Offshore Powerboat Association (ROPA) guys there Hustlers, Fountains, Baja, Formulas and Checkmate's!
 
It's about 4.5 hours away. Have you ever heard of kinzua lake? Wondering how far away you were from there.
 
Brianh said:
It's about 4.5 hours away. Have you ever heard of kinzua lake? Wondering how far away you were from there.
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If you come for just the weekend I will out you up at my cottage and you can just tie up on my dock.

kinzua Lake looks Beautiful. Is this where you normally boat? Do you do a get together?
 
Wow, thanks for the offer. If I'm offf that weekend I might make it happen. No I boat on the allegheny river. Live right on the river with my own dock n what not. Kinzua is about 2.5 hours away. They are having a powerboat fun run in July. I only mentioned it cuz I thought it might be a few hours from you. Look me up on fb and I'll get you the link to their event.
 
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