While the engine generates the power to drive the car it also has to generate the power to drive itself. The more power it requires to drive itself the less power is left to drive the car. Therefore car aftermarket products that help reduce the power required to run the engine help improve the car’s performance.
A lot of the engine’s power is consumed in driving the piston in and out of the cylinders. In the power stroke where the fuel is ignited there is energy generated for this. But in the next stroke where the exhaust gases are thrown out the engine needs to consume power.
Exhaust headers help reduce the power required to throw out exhaust gases. An exhaust header assists in taking away the exhaust gases quickly from a multi cylinder engine. How does it do that? To understand that we need to understand briefly how a multi cylinder engine works.
In a multi cylinder engine in each cylinder fuel is burnt and then the exhaust gases from the cylinder are thrown out. The exhaust gases from all the cylinders reach an exhaust manifold. The manifold is like a gathering place for the exhaust gases. However this is where the problem of back pressure rears its head. Since there are several cylinder sending gases to the exhaust manifold there are usually some gases already in the manifold when gases from another cylinder try to get there. The gases already in the manifold offer resistance and this creates the back pressure.
Exhaust headers offer an elegant solution to get rid of this crowding of the exhaust gases. Each cylinder has its dedicated exhaust pipe which carries the exhaust gases to a larger collector pipe. The dedicated exhaust pipes of all the cylinders are of the same length so that the exhaust gases reach at the same time. This does away with the need to gather the exhaust gases in an exhaust manifold and reduces the back pressure. Reduced back pressure improves the engine performance.
If you are going for car aftermarket products such as high performance body kits you should also consider products such as exhaust headers that improve the car performance.
