UEL headers, what's the point?

Ben Up North

Ben Up North

can only hope to improve
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
2,115
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FNQ
Car Year
2004 | 1992
Car Model
SG Forester X MY05 | 92 SVX
Transmission
5MT D/R | 4EAT
Ok, so lots of people rave about UEL headers..
But what's the point apart from the 'boxer sound'?
Do they improve performance?
Do they improve economy?
 
As far as i read about it they not do nothing else to 2.5NA engines. Some say you even loosing some torque on lower revs maybe, but i didint felt that. Even if i would loose i dont care. So if you no need that little bit of famous subaru impreza wrx rally rumble, then is no point to do uel.
Why i did it? I allways looked those old wrc rallys and that old 1995 impreza wrx was sounding like heaven for me and its still is. And then i heard on youtube how other outback sounds with it and i just loved it.
Economy dont changing. I drove it and i didint felt nothing changed after uel in fuel usage.
But you could go many ways with uel . depends on rear muffler box you can make it more louder or less. Mine is less inside car is not too loud , its not distracting or anoying sound if i carry passengers noone complaining about it. But if you will go with some sporty rear muffler box then you will be quite loud outside and more inside.
 
The UEL manifold is a design compromise, due to cost and space constraints. A side effect is the Subaru rumble.

Smooth, tuned (ish) headers are better than manifolds.

EL headers are even better again - but need some redesign of the sump to fit a Subaru boxer. ie: $$ for retrofit.
 
but nothing else would give you that sound for H4 NA engine only UEL.
 
Sound, purely for sound.

Get the UEL lengths right with a good muffler out back and you'll have a very sweet WRX like sound from your NA.

The best one I've got in the family is my sister's Gen3 Liberty that I got going for her. Before handing it over I had a friend knock up a UEL set of extractors for it - best thing I did for that car. Went from Honda spec to WRX spec - power and economy hasn't changed as far as we know. My sister consistently pulls 8.6L/100km from it every week on the open road.

The UELs might rob 8kw or there abouts, but for pure driving pleasure it's well worth it in my opinion.

Now I'm working out how to do the same with my EJ22 L series (which has a factory UEL Y pipe but isn't anywhere near as good as the Gen3) and the brumby. Again the brumby has a factory UEL Y pipe, but another guy I know built his own set of extractors following the lines of the turbo extractors and it sounds mint with a good muffler out the back.

That's pretty much the only reason for it. The subaru has the best note only second to a V8 with a decent exhaust system on it IMHO!!

Cheers

Bennie
 
El_Freddo said:
Sound, purely for sound...

...The UELs might rob 8kw or there abouts, but for pure driving pleasure it's well worth it in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Personally, I'd rather have the 8kw :)

That's pretty much the only reason for it. The subaru has the best note only second to a V8 with a decent exhaust system on it IMHO!!

Cheers

Bennie
Click to expand...

My 76 beetle used to sound pretty wicked when it had a hole in the exhaust and the old man's '74 911 sounded pretty awesome too.

I wonder if there's any common link.. ;)

I guess I could be tempted if the process of obtaining and installing them was cheap. I also don't really have the equipment to do all the work, so would in all likelyhood have to pay someone to do it, which kind of kills the cheap factor.
 
If you dont need that sound or dont care then you no need uel's . if you care for sound you dont care for couple kw. And noone counted that you use 8kw or something. Its just some say that. Depends on uel. My uel is what i made so noone have same uel as i made. As those angles are diff.
Then you can change sound with air intake as well. When i put that cold air intake filter it was too loud inside car like omg loud . i just test it and changed back to oem slighty modified air box.
Didint felt nothing that i lost any power but thats because that sound makes you feel cool right away. Like you feel as you have more power because you more hear what engine doo , i love how mine sounds when i release gas pedal it makes some cool sound there think its sounds even better outside.
 
El_Freddo said:
The UELs might rob 8kw or there abouts, but for pure driving pleasure it's well worth it in my opinion.
Click to expand...



On my 2.0L foz I went from stock headers and exhaust to UEL’s and bigger exhaust and I definitely noticed more power (and noise lol)
Now I can’t compare UEL’s without the bigger exhaust so that makes things tricky
but I think my mid to top end power has increased by a few kw at least as I can now safely overtake whereas before it was something I would plan for 15ks lol.
All this at the cost of slightly less response in the low end.

All in all having the uel headers and exhaust only makes me want to drive my foz more lol

1WD
 
2.0 engines sounds really good with UEL . but that more power feel you getting from sound like it goes into you and because you more hear what engine is doing thats why you kinda feel more power.
 
No actually that’s why I went into depth trying to explain that I have an increase in power.
Plus I’m using less fuel
Go figure

1WD
 
1WD Foz said:
No actually that’s why I went into depth trying to explain that I have an increase in power.
Plus I’m using less fuel
Go figure

1WD
Click to expand...

Possibly less resistance?

A friend of mine reckons the simplest way to get more power out of an engine, put a decent exhaust system on it.
 
less resistance makes sense as to why I’m doing better on fuel.... I didn’t even think of that lol
I think the exhaust would be possibly the only reason why I’ve got more power.

1WD
 
Type ej25 uel header dyno into google and there are a couple of threads on the subject. One topic showed that the car in question lost about 4 bhp around 3000 rpm but made closer to 15bhp up top. The stock manifold is well.......gash!! An ebay uel header and a decat onto a 2.25" system will make decent gains for a na car.
 
1WD Foz said:
No actually that’s why I went into depth trying to explain that I have an increase in power.
Plus I’m using less fuel
Go figure
Click to expand...

It could be two things:

Less exhaust restriction thus the engine is breathing easier which means more ponies for wheel turning. Or

More noise so you're easier on the throttle, particularly up hills where you're more aware about how hard the engine is working... But really it's probably the first point above ;)

Cheers

Bennie
 
Thats why ppl removing catalyst and stuff there. But for mot you must have that stock exhaust to put back on.
Uel is for sound sound sound.well who loves that legendary 95 impreza wrx rumble. Newer wrx imorezas kinda lost that unique sound
 
Right bit of misinformation here. Even the cheapest ebay UEL headers will add power over the stock header unless you have a ej204 ej253 ie newer avcs motor. The stock headers are ridiculously restriced with tiny diameter short primaries and if you cut one open you will see sharp poorly formed joins that jut out obstructing flow.
UEL headers tend to make slightly less power in the upper part of the rev range compared to the crazy expensive EL headers of TWE/rallitek/cobb but still more than stock. In my oppinion you need to change the full system including decats and a header to see worthwhile gains.
 
or just do it for sound cheap way. still feels same in city and forest.
 
I would say most people wouldn’t be able to feel the small increase in hp from installing just UEL headers.... without a nice exhaust to complement it, especially when it changes the way your car sounds also, this might be a distraction.
As mentioned above...even cheap ebay UEL’s would be less restrictive than stock, and who doesn’t like the sound [emoji23]

1WD
 
Thing is we have imagination. Well some more then others, still when you here that subaru rumble sound your brain makes you feel that its lots cooler and more powerfull. Similar to cold air filter mod it gives so much sound from air intake , even too much for daily driving. Uel alone is enough here.
 
If you just installed UEL headers with stock exhaust system would you still get a rumble? Assuming it would be a quiet rumble but still more than what you get from the stock headers.
 
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