Ok to heat and bend a pitman arm?

Pretty self explanitory question from the title, but since I am new I'll tell a little about the car. Its a 73 swinger with a 383. I'm in the process of adding headers, Hooker Comps and I don't think anyone else has put these in successfully. So far I've done it with no dents to the headers, but the pitman/idler arms both hit the primary tubes a little...3/8 of an inch or less. I don't want to smack the tubes, so can I heat and bend the idler/pitman arms to clear? I don't mind denting header tubes, but I would like to spread out the mods in that area so I'm not killing primary tubes.