When it's done the original way when I stream lets say the number 8000 it gets there as 8000.
What is "the original way"?
Your code is expecting "<8000>", not "8000". Are you sending it correctly? What does your debug output tell you? Oh wait, you don't have any!
processInput() collects the serial data that is in the buffer. It does NOT block until the end of the packet has arrived. You are printing the value as though the whole packet had arrived, on each pass through loop, even though there is a better then even chance that it has not.