Hooker headers

Iam able to get a set of Hooker Headers #5901-1HKR at steal of a deal for my duster 340. Does anyone have any good or bad things/reviews to say about these before i commit to these. Im still a while out before I actually need a completed exhaust. I have power brakes, manual steering, 4 gear.
Thanks for your help

Ryan, welcome aboard!

Those are the typical 50 (?) year old design that has 3 drivers tubes going under the front end linkage requiring a disassembley of the front end linkage to enable it to go through the header.

Ground clearance can be an issue as this type of design is well know for flattening out the 3 tubes.

Speed bumps are your bane and pot holes (deep enough) will for certainly cause a bang.

Just so the term disassembly of the front suspension doesn't scare you. You just have to take out wto of the steering link bolts and pound of loose with a pickle fork. slide it through the header and then just retighten them down. So the trim disassembling the suspension here really means two bolts. And not everyone has flatten their header tubes. I've Street driven my cheap Summit headers that are knockoff of those. I've never scrape the ground once. But again I realize these headers aren't super super high up in the air. Also I keep my front suspension tweaked up a little higher and stiffer than most. but yeah you get stupid bouncing over big bumps at high speeds and you're going to smash them. But if you know they're under there don't go over bumps at high speeds! And you'll be fine. This is the time when you buy the headers when you don't need them yet and they're Dirt Cheap. Because the day you want them you know what they're going to cost and you're not going to be able to find them.
Another thing on smashing these headers , they're generally inexpensive headers so the younger crowd gets them as their first pair of headers because they can't afford the expensive ones. Then as we are young people we would drive like maniacs and idiots and smashed the bottoms of the headers.

Depending on the header design, you may also need a compact starter. I have a set of hooker competitions with the same driveline as you in my demon, but original starter does not fit.

Install tips for ANY set of headers going into an A body small block, learned after 30 years of skinned knucles and a lot of cursing.
Plan on removing EVERYTHING listed here. Don't try to just remove one thing then fight with it for hours, only to remove another. Been there, done that.
Get the front end up high enough that you can manuever the headers around while underneath the car. Don't let your jackstand placement get in the way of that. Disconnect battery. Pull the steering center link first. Pull the starter. If coulmn shift or 4 speed, remove the shift link / clutch z bar. Drain the radiator - exhaust manifold studs on the ends are wet and will drain your coolant if you don't do it first. Carefully remove those 4 studs. Set motor to TDC on compression stroke. Pull the distributor - it will hit the firewall when you jack the motor up. Be sure you have a right angle oil filter adapter and extra gaskets, or just extra gaskets if you remove your existing one. Remove the oil filter or adapter. Plan on having a new filter and oil - sucks being on your back and trying to reinstall it with oil dripping out of it and onto your fresh gaskets with new silicone on it. Loosen the motor mounts - good time to change them if they are looking tore up. Use a floor jack and wood under the pan to raise the engine as high as possible. You might also consider removing the entire steering column as it will make it easier. Plan on the headers touching the torsion bars, steering box coupler, etc. and requiring some love taps with a ball peen hammer in spots. A mini starter not only makes more space, it may not require some sort of heat shield, like an older model of starter may. Plan on rerouting the starter cables to protect from heat. Install the headers loosely. Test fit your header nuts - some can be a PITA to install. Allen head nuts make this painless. Use silicone on the threads of the end header bolts. Don't wail on them while tightening and bend your flange. Plan on snugging them up again a few times as the header gasket takes a set. Plan on being creative with spark plug boots and plug wire looms to keep them from burning against the headers. Install the oil filter adapter after the pass side header is in place. Don't tighten it down til you are sure the angle it's installed at will allow removing/installing the filter. Expect any paint on the headers to burn off in the 1st 10 minutes of operation, unless you baked them on before install. Plan on rejetting the carb or else your engine may feel down on power compared to before, as headers will make your engine run leaner. Go easy over curbs and pot holes. Expect some road rash over time.... And now you know why real 340 exhaust manifolds are so pricy...lol

...allen head BOLTS...

If you have manual steering the 5204 is a better header. If you don't want to buy new then use what you have.

Garbage... save your money for headers that don't hang below the centerlink. Dougs or tti.

I killed way too many of the low hanging hooker and cheap copy headers over the years. Putting them on SUCKS... doing it more than once is idiotic!

I had a brand new set that I installed. Was a nightmare. Hung way to low. Took them back out and
threw them in the garbage. What a waist of money. Bought TTI'S and fits like a glove.

Hard lesson for me. But then again its only material things.

monook said:

I had a brand new set that I installed. Was a nightmare. Hung way to low. Took them back out and
threw them in the garbage. What a waist of money. Bought TTI'S and fits like a glove.

Hard lesson for me. But then again its only material things.

Click to expand...

I don`t know about small block headers, but on the old hemi car, I ran dougs headers for years. A small sponser friend turned up w/ 2 sets of hookers when they first came out. The hemi blew the first set apart in about a month, we welded them up and changed to the other new set. It blew them apart too, we welded them up and ran them. I never liked the hookers .

Of the low hanging headers those are the best. Quality is well above hedmans. Thicker flange, thicker tubes, welded collector, fit without one dent. I had to beat the hell out of my hedmans to get them to fit. I will admit my next pair will be dougs or tti.

My Hookers requires 1 dent at the manual steering box
My Summit cheapies fit perfect
Black Jacks were a nightmare.
Hedman’s were a fair fit requiring more work than average but not a nightmare.

What AirGrabber said at least the Hooker part. Never tried the others. I had no clearance issues except with the ground. I use a short Ford/Mopar oil filter and wrapped the starter with exhaust wrap. Those end exhaust studs gave me trouble, broke off flush with the head.

yellow rose said:

If you have manual steering the 5204 is a better header. If you don't want to buy new then use what you have.

Click to expand...

YR, I've seen you post a lot about headers... is there a late A body header that can be retrofitted to fit a early A body by re-routing a few primary tubes???
Ultimately, I'd like a set of 1 3/4x 1 7/8 stepped.. good, bad, or ugly, let me have it

'63GT said:

YR, I've seen you post a lot about headers... is there a late A body header that can be retrofitted to fit a early A body by re-routing a few primary tubes???
Ultimately, I'd like a set of 1 3/4x 1 7/8 stepped.. good, bad, or ugly, let me have it

Click to expand...

Im not YR but i have alot of doubts about any 67up header that will fit an early A everything is more narrow on an early A Framerails,steeringbox,fenders,torsionbars everything.
Have built and reconfigured a few sets of headers and on tight applictions its just a whole lot easier to build something from scratch than start to reconfigure something already available.

1Fast340 said:

Im not YR but i have alot of doubts about any 67up header that will fit an early A everything is more narrow on an early A Framerails,steeringbox,fenders,torsionbars everything.
Have built and reconfigured a few sets of headers and on tight applictions its just a whole lot easier to build something from scratch than start to reconfigure something already available.

Click to expand...

I can't argue that...
The reason I asked was.. I put a 383 in a '70 Duster way back when. I wanted headers bad. I had a set of B body headers laying around, so I slide the pass side in place, and to my surprise they FIT.
Drivers side didn't. One tube was upsetting the whole plan. Then, after much study, I noticed if I just re-routed that one bend it would fit. a half hour later, IT DID.
The moral of the story here is, never give up...

'63GT said:

I can't argue that...
The reason I asked was.. I put a 383 in a '70 Duster way back when. I wanted headers bad. I had a set of B body headers laying around, so I slide the pass side in place, and to my surprise they FIT.
Drivers side didn't. One tube was upsetting the whole plan. Then, after much study, I noticed if I just re-routed that one bend it would fit. a half hour later, IT DID.
The moral of the story here is, never give up...

Click to expand...

I gueas you might have discovered the old Hedman B body headers on a lowdeck trick that also seems to work mostly ok on AbodysI like the way you think,going outside of the box sometimes pays but those Early As sure makes it seems like there are oceans of space in a bigblock late A

1Fast340 said:

I gueas you might have discovered the old Hedman B body headers on a lowdeck trick that also seems to work mostly ok on AbodysI like the way you think,going outside of the box sometimes pays but those Early As sure makes it seems like there are oceans of space in a bigblock late A

Click to expand...

lol Yeah, wishful thinking paid-off back then. It's a different beast now though, I know.

'63GT said:

lol Yeah, wishful thinking paid-off back then. It's a different beast now though, I know.

Click to expand...

For what little its worth the only header i can think of that is 1 3/4 stepped to 1 7/8 is a Hedman multipiece header that last i checked was proably 7-800dollars,so they are a fairly expensive starter kit even thougth they do have a few qualitys that makes them more probable to have some kind of usefullness as a starting kit to build from on a early A than any other late A header i can think of.
Personaly i would probably prefer doing a header with atelast two tubes on each side going out thru the fenderwell and then in under the framerail again if i where to build something similar on a early A.

Do hookers still use the ground O-ring flange? FAIL! If they are a screamin deal, sure. But there are better ones out there if you got the time to wait for another deal. Just MHO..as a guy who got burned by Hookers when they asked for my receipt when a manufacturing defect was uncovered. Lifetime warranty on manufacture defects...My ***.

1Fast340 said:

For what little its worth the only header i can think of that is 1 3/4 stepped to 1 7/8 is a Hedman multipiece header that last i checked was proably 7-800dollars,so they are a fairly expensive starter kit even thougth they do have a few qualitys that makes them more probable to have some kind of usefullness as a starting kit to build from on a early A than any other late A header i can think of.
Personaly i would probably prefer doing a header with atelast two tubes on each side going out thru the fenderwell and then in under the framerail again if i where to build something similar on a early A.

Click to expand...

Funny. I was checking that header out this morning. Yes, that's a big bite to take on the hope it will pan out. But exactly what I need. Besides, I'd rather have a root canal and prostate exam at the same time, than cut my pretty fenders...

'63GT said:

YR, I've seen you post a lot about headers... is there a late A body header that can be retrofitted to fit a early A body by re-routing a few primary tubes???
Ultimately, I'd like a set of 1 3/4x 1 7/8 stepped.. good, bad, or ugly, let me have it

Click to expand...

Nope. I'm an early A fan first and then an A fan next but that's one of the big drawbacks of the early A chassis. They are much more narrow through the engine bay, and they have the Valiant wheel base. They are even narrow all the way through the chassis.

There is just nowhere to put all that pipe in the early cars.

On my 64 Barracuda that I raced the firewall was gone when I bought the car. PO was going BBC and I saved the car from that fate for many years.

Anyway, since the firewall was gone, I moved it back 9 inches and moved the engine back 8 inches. Then we had to build headers. At that time, I used 2.125 tubes about 28 inches long and a 4 inch collector. I had smaller headers but I never made them work, because smaller headers fit better and easier. The biggest power losers were the 1.875 headers that virtually every header builder in the country told me would make more power. In the end I had 3 sets of headers for the car. 1.875, 2.000 and 2.125 and the biggest difference between the two biggest sets were the torque curve moved up about 500 RPM so I always ran the big tubes. It was a fantastic pain in the *** and the header guys all called me a liar. Even with dyno sheets and some time slips.


To this day, the biggest sins I see are headers that are too small, waaaaaay too long and collectors too small and too damn short.

In fact, I can't think of a time I'd ever use an 1.625 header. Ever. Most don't realize that most headers use that tube size not because it works (because it generally doesn't) but because it is easier to make fit in production chassis and with production tolerances, it's easier to band and it's cheaper.

1Fast340 said:

For what little its worth the only header i can think of that is 1 3/4 stepped to 1 7/8 is a Hedman multipiece header that last i checked was proably 7-800dollars,so they are a fairly expensive starter kit even thougth they do have a few qualitys that makes them more probable to have some kind of usefullness as a starting kit to build from on a early A than any other late A header i can think of.
Personaly i would probably prefer doing a header with atelast two tubes on each side going out thru the fenderwell and then in under the framerail again if i where to build something similar on a early A.

Click to expand...

For what you are doing you need at least (and I mean you need to test to know but I'm betting I'm on the small side) 1.875 tubes, a 3.5 inch collector about 20 inches long and primary tubes 30-31 inches long and no longer.

If you can't get that with a fender well header don't do it. Figure out another configuration.

yellow rose said:

For what you are doing you need at least (and I mean you need to test to know but I'm betting I'm on the small side) 1.875 tubes, a 3.5 inch collector about 20 inches long and primary tubes 30-31 inches long and no longer.

If you can't get that with a fender well header don't do it. Figure out another configuration.

Click to expand...

You're telling me things I suspected to be true, but didn't want to admit it
I'm really regretting NOT buying the Magnum Force front end and rack and pinion..
My wife keeps reminding me, it's to go get burgers n stuff.. But I don't like leaving 5 tenths behind with these whimpy 1 5/8 headers either.. As soon as I can come up with an alternative, I'm gonna kick a field goal with them.
This header deal has been occupying my every thought, since my last trip down the 1320. I even dream about it, then wake up feeling like I've been working my *** off.
Worst thing is, my Dart is in the body shop and I can't get to it every time I get a light bulb moment. I'll figure something out..
Thank you for your thoughts !!

Hooker built a set of fender well headers for my friends '66 GT 340 .. FOR FREE .. "Let us have the car for a week and the headers are yours. No charge." Might be the same pattern they use now.