Quote:
Originally Posted by Detoxing
Long tubes are a pain in the ass. We haven't put long tubes in a car in yeeeears. They generally interfere with power rack conversions thus requiring modifications on the driver side header.
Aftermarket Mustang II conversions (the most common front end swap on a classic) generally aren't compatible since the long tubes usually come down and run right into the cross-member. And they are a bitch to route around any late model transmission like a T56 Magnum, which already require trans tunnel modifications just to get the proper pinion angle.
For most street applications (300-800 Crank HP) they're simply un-necessary and muddle up the job, requiring more modification for no real reason.
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Yea, I cant claim to know anything about modifying old cars, I do know that with long tubes you always have a clearance issues in one way or another. In my full suspension car I CONSTANTLY dragged my long tubes on anything and everything, in my current stock suspension car the long tubes still get banged around now and again. I just know in f body applications shortys are good for about 8 HP on a stock motor, and long tubes are worth about 20. The bigger you go the more that disparity increases, but I guess in the grand scheme of things 20-30hp difference on a setup isnt much. I think it just goes to the fact that most peoples first modification on a street driven F body is headers, which is a little different than doing ground up builds for resto mod stuff.