Interesting video on hot side back pressure, plus some of my thoughts. Like hearing about the experience of others.
Here is a good example of backpressure and what it cost. You have to look at only between 6000 and 6500 rpm for this example, because he had uncontrolled waste gates, so this is the only range that boost was equal and hence an equal comparison. He did not provide measurements on the intake side other than manifold boost, but since the same intake components were used, I bet negligible difference here. The other piece that would have been nice to know is the exhaust temperature at the turbine inlet.
The back pressure difference is close to 6 to 7 psi, which is netting roughly 50 HP on this particular engine. This is a dyno test, so spool up is not represented. Since the turbo and intake tract are the same, exhaust down stream of the turbo is the same, all of the difference is in the hot side exhaust.
The compressor side power requirement, between 6 to 6500 rpm is going to be the same. The intake flow for both cases will be essentially the same (fuel flow would have been another good piece of info), unless do to cam overlap you may be getting some more mass flow through the engine with the lower back pressure, and turbine shaft speed would have to be the same. This means the exhaust flow has to be different through the turbine. The only way that occurs is if exhaust is hotter, higher specific volume, less mass flow through the turbine at higher pressure. The higher pressure will give a higher pressure drop and more energy extraction from the exhaust to drive the compressor at the same shaft power with less mass flow, which means more is being passed through the waste gate in the lower power case. I think the better flow and volume of the SS tube headers is allowing more expansion and hence cooling of the exhaust gas, lower specific volume and hence lower pressure before the turbine. The headers are also likely dissipating more exhaust heat that the Hookers too.
My guess is the power picked up mainly due to reduced pumping losses.
On the Buicks, the stock headers and the aftermarket stuff is usually not a problem like this example with the Hooker cast manifolds, but it does show the cost of back pressure on HP, so optimizing the hot side and the turbine is important.