Hi all, added a P&L EL catted header (used) a couple months ago and thought I'd share my thoughts. I'm really happy with it:
Build: Really nice piece - welds look great, collector very smooth, flanges are thick and the whole thing seems to be quite well built/sturdy. Vband coupling makes it easier to bolt up and tweak the overpipe so it doesn't rub (required a little fiddling). Premium product IMHO.
Noise: Exhaust is otherwise stock except for a Greddy SP Elite axle back. It sounds *really* nice, exceeds my expectations. I liked the SP Elite for it's deeper/slightly louder than stock/mellow tone, but always thought it was still just a hair too tame. The headers gave it some edge - now the car has a much more aggressive/angry/exotic sound from 4K on. I now find myself cruising in traffic on the interstate between 4k and 5k sometimes, just to hear the sound. I was initially a little worried reading about some people's header experiences, but this is not too loud at all though.
Power: I was surprised, was expecting more noise, less torque dip, but nothing huge. What I got was no torque dip and pretty big surge in power around 4K. It seems that it's a little soggier than stock below 3k, but that might just be that it's so much stronger above 3k now. It really starts to rip approaching 4k, sound gets meaner, around 5.5k the torque 'wave' subsides a bit but definitely still pulls noticeably harder than before all the way to redline.
This is all on an off the shelf open flash tablet EL tune - and I figure there's more power to be had. This is a long tube design, and I doubt the current tune is fully optimized for this header.
Anyway anybody thinking about an EL header, I'm really impressed with this one (and catted too!). It really changes the character of the car to something more 'serious', and the new power curve makes the car way more entertaining to drive.
Next I have some billet power blocks to fatten up the upper RPM band!
