Ford's 7.3L Godzilla V8 Gets American Racing Headers

Ford's 7.3L Godzilla V8 Gets American Racing Headers

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We’ve been saying it for years; the holy trinity of bolt-on mods consists of intake, tune, and exhaust. With Ford getting better and better at designing high-flow/low-restriction intakes that gulp in cool outside air, aftermarket CAIs have become less of a necessity. However, there’s still plenty of performance to be found by feeding the ECU a new calibration and few things personalize a ride quite like a new exhaust. But if you really want to liven things up on the back end, few ways do it with more style than a quality set of long tube headers.

Smooth mandrel bends and high quality welds are hallmarks of American Racing Headers.
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This particular set brings us back out to 5 Star Tuning in Florence, SC; and quite possibly the most viewed 2020 7.3L Super Duty in the interwebs. Josh’s Godzilla truck has been featured so many times on the site that I have a hard time keeping up with what exactly we’ve covered. But today we’re testing out a set of American Racing Headers on the truck in tuned N/A form. You may be asking yourself, “where’s the Procharger?” We actually did this testing before the blower install (the truck got the stock exhaust system reinstalled for that), and we’ll be following this story up with a boosted version in a few weeks.

Check out this 2-into-1 merge collector with 3-inch outlet.
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In any event, the ARH headers and mid-pipes are a fairly simple and straight-forward install. There’s a ton of room to work with underneath, and on a lift anyone should be able to get everything bolted together in a couple hours. After that, we just had to strap the truck to the rollers and do a little tuning via HP Tuners software:

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The results were a solid twenty rear wheel horsepower and twenty lb-ft of torque across the board. Keep in mind, that’s still running through the factory catback. We didn’t have the full ARH exhaust system to bolt on, so we made due with the factory mufflers. There’s probably another 5 HP hiding in there, but that’s something we’ll have to determine a little later on down the road. Stay tuned for that.

These things just scream 'Performance'. These pics was taken after the headers were removed so the truck could be sent to Procharger.
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Out on the road, the ARH headers add a lot more growl to the 7.3L V8. In factory form; the Godzilla engine has a pleasant, yet subdued, sound. It’s clear that there’s much more sound left on the table, and this ARH system unleashed quite a bit of it. Exhaust sound preference is highly personalized, so your mileage may vary, but I personally think this system was a big improvement over stock. I think with a proper cat-back to increase the lower end of the range of tones exiting the pipe you could have something that sounds like a big block should.

That's a quality weld on the collector.​

Power-wise, the difference is slightly noticeable. By itself, 20 HP on a 7,000 pound truck is not an enormous change. However, the headers combined with the 5 Star 93 Octane tune bumps up the output by nearly 45 RWHP and 52 RWTQ, and that’s a gain you can certainly feel. That’s not even to mention the improvements in shift quality that comes along with a tune. This thing sounds and performs like a serious truck. If I owned a Godzilla powered Ford I would definitely plan on bolting on a full exhaust system.

Here's a quick shot of the ARH mid-pipes.


A sight like this should make you smile every time you pop your hood.


The factory cast iron manifolds are actually pretty decent, but they definitely aren't light-weight units.


Here's a shot of the factory mid-pipes.



Yeah, it's making some decent power.​

-SID297