hey guys i just bought an 08 challenger srt8 and was thinking about doing a full exhaust from the headers on back. from what i have read so far the popular choice seems to be long tube headers and cat back (kooks and corsa) or just highflow cats and a catback (magnaflow and corsa seems to be a popular choice). i was just wondering if the headers would be worth the extra coin or would i get about the same amount of power just from highflow cats and exhaust...
I'll chime in and say, based on the SRT engineers, the restriction in the exhaust system is in the cats and the stock exhaust with stock shorty headers are good up to 500 hp. If you're not looking to do major upgraded engine work (supercharge, heads/cam, etc), then there is really no reason drop $1500+ on long tubes.
Highflow cats are ok, but then you run into emissions issues and also the dreaded CEL. This is fixed by getting anti foulers for the rear O2 sensors or getting the Predator tuner and having a CMR Tuner tune it out.
If you're set on exhaust changes, high flow cats and modifications to the resonators and mufflers (straight pipe, etc) is the cost effective way to go. Else, you can drop some extra change into a cat-back system with the high flows.