Topic: header and clutch questions, 85 cobra

[85cobra]

What should I go for?... I hear mixed opinions. My dad has owned an 85' Cobra as well as a 76', and he tells me that long tubes have better airflow and sound.. but others tell me for a street car not going over 300-350ish horses its more plausable to go with shorties. The headers are going with a X or H-pipe from Mac or Flowmaster with no Cats (not sure which they will be yet, they have to be unequal to make this easy on us) and then 2.5" pipes to 3" tipped flowmaster cat-back.  Opinions? Solid Information? Then I am also buying the King Cobra clutch (with the 10.5" flywheel) for my car, which is going to be 1/2 an inch bigger than the stock clutch. Ive been told it will due for 50-60% more torque than stock..so 270tqx1.5 is 405ish, but I when I went to order it, the guy told me it would only be good up to 300ish tq...thats not much more than stock. So Ford tells me 50-60% more, and the mustang "expert" tells me 300..who do I believe? I dont want to waste my money on a clutch that wont be holding up later.

Thanks for your help   

[Soaring]

Your dad is correct.  The long tubes have collectors whereas the shorties do not.  The reason for the invention of the shorties was for clearance issues, but you should not have that issue with your 85. 

[rmodel65]

since 85 have single exhaust its really a toss up on what you wanna spend the mid pipe(y pipe) is different from the 86-93 cars(h pipe) so you gotta factor that in to the price equation. it really wont be much more expensive to go with long tubes in your case. imho i would since you gotta do the headers and the mid pipe(h pipe) to be able to run the normal shortys on the market.