Below are a few quotes I have picked out especially which should help clear things up.
"For low RPM performance, a small diameter, long tube will give the best port velocity, and exhaust inertia. For midrange performance, a shorter length, larger diameter runner is best. For very high RPM, a very short, large runner is needed because restriction is the biggest problem at high RPM."
"The narrower the rpm range of the header, the more power produced at that point. The wider the header's rpm range, relatively less but more evenly distributed power will be the result. Typically, longer tube headers produce more bottom end power, as does smaller tubes. Low rpm designed headers typically trade off more of a loss at higher revs than gained at the lower levels."
"As stated in the beginning, only Non-Turbocharged engines can benefit from headers, due to the fact that the pressure in front of the turbo negates any potential for the scavenging effects, while the turbo blades "chop up" the pulses into a "woosh" of air after the turbo, hence there are no pulses left to work with. Typically, the shortest, biggest and the most free flowing exhaust behind a turbo is best."
"Headers generally have lengths of pipe (called runners) that are equal length, with these lengths so measured so as to cause peak torque at a certain RPM range. Long, thin runners will bump up low end RPMs and have a wide RPM band, while shorter, wider runners increase high end RPM performance with a narrower RPM band. The wide runners generally have the unfortunate effect of dropping low-end torque. Why is this? As the tail end of each pulse leaves the runner and goes into the collector, a high-pressure spike gets induced into the other runners in that header. Now, if this high-pressure spike were to hit the exhaust valve for another combustion chamber as it was opening (or already open), the result would be a backpressure transient that would pose a restriction to that pulse that was trying to leave. Narrow runners, on the other hand, give great low-end torque at the expense of high-end power. This is simpler to explain, simply because the runners are too narrow for more than a little bit of flow at a time."
L8rs
Nad