I've had an LC which was a long tube and a northwest off road which was a tri-y design. The long tube gave slight seat of the pants gains, better than the tri-y, but nothing like what you notice from nice low ring and pinion gearing. If you want your Toyota to perform keep your money in the drivetrain.
If you need a header I would probably go with the LC. Personally though I would shop around and wait for a good deal on a used header, the gains are not worth the money for a new header in my experience. You can almost buy gears for the price of a new header and nothing can beat good gearing. I know I'm harping on this, but if you spend the cash on a header you will be like "Oh yeak I notice just a little more power, cool beans"... If you spend the coin on some 4.88s or 5.29 ring and pinions you will be more like "Holy crap I can use high range in the mud hole and I can cruise up the pass in 4th gear! I can accelerate with traffic now! I just beat that civic off the line!" Think of putting really dinky smaller than stock tires on your truck and imagine how much you could do smokey burnouts. That's what lower gears do. If you are running 4.88s and 31s you will have a friggin' hot rod. You can throw a whole lot of money at your engine, which is fine, but nothing you do to your 22r will give you more bang for your buck than good gearing.
I don't want to discourage you from buying a header, I've bought a few over the years mostly when I was your age. I have one on my '80 and I built one from scratch for my 3RZ. I did the whole hot 22re thing with the intake, cam, header, etc on my '94 when I was 18 and dumped enough money on the engine to build another cheap truck... If I had it to do over again I would start with the drivetrain mods because that's where the performance is at on these trucks.
That old 22r manifold woth the long tubes back to the cat is almost a header anyway. I would get one of those or look for a used long tube.
If you have vast disposable income then go for it though I'm not trying to be a buzz kill
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