Hooker headers
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 :)
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.
