I am going to be in the market for some headers pretty soon. After my car's **** poor performance at the track, we realized that a few things need to be fixed. One is the exhaust.

I am worried about few things with full length headers though. Heat being the major issue, and ground clearance.

If you are running headers (not the ones for side-pipes), which brand and model are you running ? How is the ground clearance? What is your opinions of before and after ?

Let me know what you all think.

 

I'm using the Dynomax Ceramacoat headers and I like them a lot. Once installed there was a seat of the pants increase in performance and they sound a lot better than the stock manifolds. I had the headers connected to my stock 2 1/2 inch pipes at the crossmember. I also had a crossover tube installed between the header connector pipes just under the tranny.Here are some pics.





[Modified by vettfixr, 7:48 PM 10/6/2002]


[Modified by vettfixr, 8:02 PM 10/6/2002]

 

For your car I'll leave the brand recommendations to others w/ more info on fit, etc.....but I strongly recommend getting them w/ a heat coating on them. It not only helps w/ heat but looks much better than peeling header paint- well worth the extra $

 

I have hooker super comps. only hit them once on a very very steep driveway i pulled into to turn around once.

 

I'll throw down a vote for the DynoMax Ceramic Coated headers. Mine fit great, sound great, and the coating keeps them cool...well, relatively speaking.

 

Dynomax-Ceramicoats (abt 215 bucks, Jeg's or Summit), lined rite up with the holes in the crossmember, so clearence isn't an issue, and temp is reduced underhood also......It dont get no better than that...... :D :D :D

 

I'm using a set of Headman headers (Jet-Hot coating inside and out) with AIR tubes (emission compliant).
I purchased them used from another forum member. I don't have anything to compare them with but they fit well in the chassis. I did have some difficulty sealing them to my Trick Flow heads because they have "D" ports and the headers are round port.

 

Hooker Super Competition Sidemount Headers and Sidepipes!!!

 

THIS IS WHAT I NEED !! Are they full length ?
I need the AIR Tubes and they have to be coated and I have angle plug heads as well.
Do you have a part number or any other info. on your headers?
How about ground clearance ?

 

I'm running the junkyard special :smash: actually i traded the ones i have now for my old camaro headers.. some guy with an 80 Z28 ended up with a pals 77 shark headers so we traded.. and they SUCK!! i might be doing block hugger headers and making up a side mounted exhaust that i can use the stock side pipe covers for

 

[QUOTE]I'm using the Dynomax Ceramacoat headers and I like them a lot. Once installed there was a seat of the pants increase in performance and they sound a lot better than the stock manifolds. I had the headers connected to my stock 2 1/2 inch pipes at the crossmember. I also had a crossover tube installed between the header connector pipes just under the tranny.

 

What does the crossover pipe do for you?
If I have a set of pipes made, should I do that on a 73-350 with a few extra horses (bout 350hp) during a rebuild?

 

I have Hedman full length headers and they are excellent looking and fitting - they are also jet hot coated. these look real good and stay that way - I too have a corssover going under the tranny much like vettefixrs.

A crossover pipe will help equalize the pulses in the two sides of the exhaust system. there are two benefits to this.

1. increased torque creation throughout the power band
2. reduced 'poppiness' in the exhaust and reduced volume (loudness) of the exhaust.

The picture is a bit fuzzy though


[Modified by fauxrs, 2:54 PM 10/7/2002]

 

I use the Hedman Elite headers, with a thermal coating. They Fit great and don't hang down at all, underhood and interior temperatures were greatly reduced, but I don't know how much the performance was increased because I did my whole exhaust at once. Like was said above an X pipe or H pipe will really improve an exhasut system, but I would wait until you do new pipe to install one of those. I bought my whole exhaust from Jeg's, the part number for the headers is #500-68308 ($255.99), and the X pipe is #500-18813 (2.5 inch, $89.99), and the H pipe is #389-15920 (2.5 inch, $37.99). Hope this helps, good luck with whatever you choose.

 

:seeya Sorry can't be much help :nonod: (Hooker Sidepipes)

 

I installed hooker supercomp with car only about 15" off floor and they slide up much easier than i expected. It turned out to be one of those jobs where the "dread factor" was completely unwarranted. :)

I ran 2 1/2' true duals and H pipe (2" to avoid conflict with parking break cable) just aft of tranny mount and Flowmaster 50's. fit like a glove and made a big difference on my otherwise stock L48 :D .

If only my heater core replacement was going that good :mad

 

dont know about the rest of you, but i had long full length headers on, took them off because everytime i did some hard driving on a a back road that had bumps they would scrape,,,,,,,now im running short hooker headers for an 85 vette,,,dont ask. :crazy:

 

Well, it looks like I have some challenges ahead.

1. Finding thermal coated headers with the AIR pipes I need to emissions.
2. Running a dual exhaust system in a 1980, a year that had no provisions for dual exhaust.
3. Running dual exhaust with one or two catalytic convertors.
4. Keeping the price down so I can afford the entire system.

What I have to work with.
1. Existing system with cast iron exhaust manifolds with AIR system and has 2" exits.
2. A pair of 1982 Exhaust manifolds. If you haven't seen them, they are factory shortie headers that use a exhaust "donut" gasket (better than flat collector gaskets), has AIR pipes and has 2 1/2 inch exits.

A local shop says they can hook up the 1982 manifolds to a dual system with dual cats and have 2 1/2 inch pipes all the way back -- $500.00 installed

Seeing that real headers will run me $200 - $400 that I don't have at the moment, should I use the 1982 manifolds and call it good ? Or do I save up for the ultra expensive long tube headers?

I want this car in the 13's by end of year........... only have to shave about 1.2 - 1.5 seconds off as is. I figure for the track I can drop the spare tire, pull the passenger side seat, radio, rear speaker box, and empty the golve box and loose about 50 - 60 lbs.

 

if you get the system with cats,,,make sure you get high flows :D

 

Bryan,
I'm using the coated Hedman Hedders. They fit good and look good and the performance is right there. I've had no heat problems in fact I was surprised how cool it was under the hood. I've not had any ground clearance problems either. The only problem I've had is removing the front and rear plugs on each side. This was solved with the right combination of tools. Overall I like them, but this is my 1st set of headers on a street car.