headers or not to headers

Sounds like your friend has good knowledge of headers on A-bodies. Speaking as a person that has just installed a set of Hooker super comps in the last 3 months I can attest that they are a royal pain in the rump roast to install although I do have power steering. If you have manual steering that will make it a little easier but you will have to disassemble your steering to allow the drivers side to pass through then re-assemble it. You will also have to unbolt the engine and jack it up as far as it will go and have a friend pry it to the passenger side as hard as he can to get the drivers side header in. The drivers side header hangs really low also. I'm sure it won't take long to be flattened out. Then there comes the issue of getting them to seal up. The middle pipes aren't lined up good. That's right. Those high dollar Hookers aren't even close to ligning up correctly. About 3/16" off. Unfortunately I had them over a year in the box so I couldn't send them back. If I had it to do over I would have sold everything I could to get TTI's or used stock manifolds.