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I know I have very few posts so I am prepared to face my "talking-to"..
There seems to be an endless debate on price versus quality (particularly on piping). It seems to me that there are three points of concern...
1) Material quality
2) Installation
3) Flow rate
1) The materials used in nearly all of these headers, intakes, exhausts, etc, are identical. Particularly if it is stainless steel, you will be safe. Things like "alumized steel", however, should be avoided.
2) Assuming that tolerances are met to within say 0.010", and the parts are designed to fit correctly, there should be no difference in the difficultly of installation. That is not to say, though, that all manufacturers design their parts to fit correctly.
3) This is the point I wanted to speak (or write) to. Hinderance to flow through a pipe is most commonly measured as "head loss". Head loss is composed of "major losses", as a result of the smoothness of the pipe's inner surface, and "minor losses", as a result of bends and other flow-blockers. The major losses, if the material is consistent between manufacturers, will always be nearly identical (+/- 5%). The minor losses as a result of pipe bends, if the piping is mandrel bent, will also be almost identical in all cases (+/- 5%). The only real difference is the component of minor losses which comes from OTHER hinderances, such as mufflers, catalytic conversion plates, filters, etc. Ultimately, then, the flowrate (or power) gained from these systems is really only a function of these critical components. In other words, there is nothing wrong with cheap piping, so long as the other parts are well designed.
My two cents.
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