Talk me into Fenderwell Headers

RzeroB said
I had a '69 Dart strip/street car with a 440/727 combo in it. The car was barely street legal and was mostly used on the strip. The fenderwells were already cut out so I put a set of Hooker 2" fenderwell headers on it. Here is what I thought about them:

Likes:
1. Ease of engine/trans maintenance - spark plugs, starter, trans shifter and kick-down linkage etc all easily accessible.
2. Ease of installation.
3. No burnt starter, plug wires or trans shifter cables.

Dislikes:
1. Like others have said, I experienced tire clearance issues too. I had to run 14's on the front. Didn't experiment with different wheel backspacing to gain more clearance (wasn't smart enough at the time to think of that!).
2. With the smaller 14" front wheels the header collector flange would sometimes catch on the back edge of the trailer/ramps when loading/unloading the car on to/off of it
3. Brake lines coming off of the master cylinder were real close to the header. Had to do some creative bending and rerouting of the brake lines. Have seen where others have installed different master cylinders with the outlet ports on the right (vs stock left) side.
4. When making a 1/4 mi pass I had a tendency to keep my left foot firmly planted on the floorboard to the left side of the brake pedal. I raced in sneakers and there was no carpeting so by the end of the pass I would get a "hot foot"!

Ma Mopar didn't do anybody any favors with all of the junk (torsion bar, steering column, starter, clutch cross shaft, etc) on the left side. Would have been a whole lot easier if they had put the starter on the right side, but that's a fantasy. I do like the idea of the partial under chassis/fenderwell header (a couple of tubes inside and a couple of tubes outside the frame rail) that Brad4406 and mischiefdart mentioned. I have only seen them with big primaries on full blown race cars and have not seen them for an A-body but I do like the idea of them. Might be worth investigating as it give you the best of both worlds. Which ever way you go I also like the idea of having your headers ceramic coated to reduce radiated heat - won't have to worry about overheated tires, brake lines or "hot foot"!

Above is probably the best none opinionated advice.

There have been many other comments that Seam fitting as well.

If your putting a built BB in the car, your probably not going to tell the difference between the two headers when your driving it. If you need to shave every tenth of a second possible, then maybe.

How much money are you really going to save? You can't just put un coated fender wells in. They will look like crap soon enough. You would have to get them powder coated. You sound like you are putting some good thought and hard earned money into this build. Don't think of the difference in price between the two choices of headers. If your not tubbing the car and putting just as much money in the rear end set up as you are the engine, you arnt going to hook up anyways...trust me, my 70 duster 440 4spd doesn't. But I don't like the drag look

My personal opinion is fender wells look cheap and ugly and take away resale value from the car as well. I could care less about ease of changing spark plugs. And always buy a new starter ( preferably mini starter) when doing an engine. Just cause!