hey all,

Im looking to open up my exhaust system on my 87 and I’d like to start shopping for some long tube headers. A few things I’m concerted about are: finding a set with EGR and AIR provisions, matching head exhaust port shape to headers, O2 bungs, ease of fitment, and price (of course).

Here’s what I’ve found lately:

Hedman: Link
Maximizer: Link

Has anyone had any experience with either of the above? More than half off the Walmart Maximizers is very intriguing…

Thanks!

 

I put Hedmann long tubes on my 86 and have been pleased with their performance. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them to anyone

 

How was the installation process?

 

What’s your budget? Something else you may want to try is putting up a WTB post in the parts forum. A member may be willing to sell you a set of used higher end headers.

 

probably $500 give or take. how do those transactions work? of course i want to avoid being scammed haha

 

Unfortunately the scammers are abound. Just be careful that it’s not someone with 2 posts lol. A 500 dollar budget may get you an entry level set of new headers. Me personally, I’d stay away from some off brand set sold by Walmart. That’s just a recipe for disaster.

 

good point, I’ll look out for that. Also typically I’d stay away from Walmart too, but I couldn’t over look the price. That in mind, you usually get what you pay for…

 

The install process wasn’t bad. I had access to a lift

 

Anyone would have a dyno test to see the difference in torque/power between original collectors and 4 in 1 aftermarket ?

 

I just finished installing a set of Hedmans on my 87 Convertible last week. It wasn't as easy as I had hoped. Here were my experiences...

- The "temporary" paint on the painted ones is on there way too well for a temp paint. I really wish they would use a much thinner coat of some cheap paint, or just send them with an oil film like all of the other mild steel exhaust stuff comes. Anyways, I didn't want to install them to burn the paint off to just have to remove them, paint them, and reinstall them. I spent a lot of time trying to sandblast them and clean them up to paint them with high temp paint, huge PITA. If I had to do it over, I would have saved the time and sprang for the ceramic ones.

- The exhaust flange blocks the bolt holes for the spark plug wire holder brackets so I had to grind a little bit out of the flange to make those fit.

- The bolts are a huge pain to get in the head. A couple of the bolt holes were so close to the primary tube that I couldn't get the flange bolt through the hole straight because the flange on the bolt would hit the primary. I had to widen the bolt holes a little bit and also grind down the flange on the bolt.

- There are two braces that bolt to the factory manifolds, one on the driver side goes to the alternator and the one on the passenger side goes to the AC compressor. The long tubes had no provisions to reuse these. I'm still working on a solution to this but I think I'll have to swap one of the headers bolts out for a long stud with two nuts and a spacer sleeve. But since I mentioned how close the bolt hole is to the primary pipe I don't know if a sleeve would be able to fit. I may end up modifying those braces to mount somewhere else on the engine.

- They don't have an O2 sensor bung, you'll have to weld one in. I put mine in the collector, plenty of space and was pretty easy, however some people say that the factory one wire sensor won't get hot enough to work if it's that far down the exhaust stream. Theres a wiring kit to adapt a 3 wire heated o2 sensor to it which is probably what I'll do. Others say you can put the O2 bung in one of the primaries closer to the ports but then you're ecm is running the whole engine based off the feedback from that one cylinder.

- My convertible has the underbody X brace. The collectors come down in front of the X brace but they are a bit lower down, so I had to make a pretty creative bend right after the socket connector to get back up and over the brace.

- Not really the fault of the headers, but on the passenger side I had to install from the bottom, but then I couldn't get the headers up high enough to get over the dipstick tube. So I tried removing the dipstick tube, and then broke it, and then discovered that the stupid dipstick tube is specific to the Corvette, it's out of production, nobody makes an aftermarket one, and the oem one goes for hundreds of dollars on eBay.

- Really minor issue, but the one spark plug boot on cylinder #6 that is greater than 90⁰ wants to rest on the primary no matter how I orient it, so I'll have to swap that out for a 90⁰ boot.

All in all, I'm happy with the end result but it definitely wasn't a plug and play. I can add some pictures later of all of this stuff if it would be helpful.

Also just wondering but do you really need to keep the AIR and EGR? Half the reason I bought long tubes was to get rid of that stuff. With long tubes you won't have cats anyways so you already won't pass emissions inspection depending on your state, if that's what you're worried about.

 

I had Hedmans as well. Since my car is a manual, I didn't have any braces to worry about. Physically getting them in was easy for me. From the bottom on the passenger side and from the top for the drivers side. I agree the bolt holes do not line up great, but I was using aftermarket heads so I have no idea if that was part of my issue. Either way, wallering out the hole or grinding the flange on the head of the bolt did the trick for me. I have had them out several times since and no, I do not love the process. But I think that is inherent in the risk/reward of long tube headers. My set did have an O2 sensor bung and mine had the AIR tubes, which I promptly cut off and welded up. My dipstick tube was replaced with a flexy style so I had no problem getting the tube under the header flange. Also, the large starter on the 87 and earlier cars can be an obstacle, but it really wasn't that bad to work around.

Good post devonmoyer1!