[crazydave]

Originally Posted by ZMEnow

Would have skipped headers and high flow cats between 10% JRE setup and 18% or 75RWHP and 125RWHP. The loss of boost made the car a dog.

You must need a new tune. This post is very misleading and not what a properly tuned car behaves like with headers. My car with a 5% and headers was far from a dog.

Your post above states a good deal of factual information such as:

Headers drop boost but add HP=True

The gains from headers are not as good as on a N/A engine=True

Is it worth the $1200, for a 15-30HP average gain(depending on mods) on a 500RW HP car? For some people it is. Headers are a good foundation piece that allows you to support more modifications in the future and to get a bit more out of them. If someone plans to ONLY do CAI and headers, then I would advise against headers as there are better HP/$ mods that you can do. Pretty soon, once you start modding you have to look to every avenue to gain additional HP. Headers do also help with your under hood temps a little bit if you get them ceramic coated vs the stock manifolds.

Headers kind of suck in states with reoccurring emissions inspections, so keep that in mind when you make your decision.

Also, don't forget to also go to the CTS-V forums for additional info. They had a few years head start on us with the LSA.