I have seen a few VE cars over the past few years with the BJ's manifold. One of them was a stock VE with n1's, 4-1 header, 3" exhaust and 3" intake. Car made 216whp and peak power was around 8500 IIRC. I would say they are better than stock. Only issue is its hard to clear the longer runner version even with removing the heater core lines. Sometimes the sacrifice is worth it.