jtkaaa07
BossMan
Any of you guy's or gal's out there using Doug's headers, have pic's of how they fit, and also do you like them?
Thanks Jeff
Thanks Jeff
Doug's headers fittment
- Thread starter jtkaaa07
- Start date
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I have them in my Duster with a 340. 833 4-speed with mechanical linkage, flaming river manual steering box, mini-starter, milodon road race pan, and stock V8 spool mounts with polyurethane inserts. I had to modify the z-bar (same as the TTI modification), and both sides needed some dimples to fully clear the 1.12" torsion bars I have. I also trimmed the corners on my 4 speed bellhousing, which is also mentioned in the install instructions if I remember right. I had to trim that back even more for the TTI shorties.
I really like the Doug's. The ground clearance is the best you'll get with long tube headers, they're better than the TTI long tubes by about 3/8". Not only that, but the Doug's give up less than 3/8" ground clearance even compared to the TTI shorties. I actually bought a set of TTI shorties and had them mostly swapped onto my car when I decided that they weren't any better for clearance than the Doug's (just different tight spots), and I switched back. I did a write up of that swap, and swap back, in my build thread here My "new" '74 Duster- or why I need a project like a hole in the head. After seeing TTI's in person I'd buy Doug's every single time. The TTI's were not all that impressive, especially considering the additional costs.
Because I also have the spool mount K there's no good way to shim the engine to adjust clearance either, so, if you have the earlier biscuit style engine mounts you may be able to adjust things a little better. Believe it or not, if it weren't for the 1.12" torsion bars I wouldn't have needed to dimple the Dougs at all. Just a little trimming on the bellhousing corners and everything would have been fine.
Here's a couple of pictures underneath. The driver's side is before I trimmed the end of the tab on the bell back a little, you can see that there's pretty much no extra room anywhere with the 4 speed linkage, large torsion bars, and milodon road race pan. Although honestly I don't know how you could route pipes through there any better, I think the Doug's manage it about as well as it can be done with long tubes. They pretty much have to be right where they are, moving them away from any of the tight spots would make them interfere somewhere else. The passenger side is after I trimmed the little tab on the bell back, I did the same on the driver's side later. It also shows my remote oil filter set up, I have a shorty filter on there now with no 90* adaptor, it fits fine. Both are before I added some small dimples in the headers to add some torsion bar clearance. My car is pretty close to worst case scenario though, I mean, outside of adding power steering I'm not sure there's anything I could do to reduce space for headers any more than I have already.
I really like the Doug's. The ground clearance is the best you'll get with long tube headers, they're better than the TTI long tubes by about 3/8". Not only that, but the Doug's give up less than 3/8" ground clearance even compared to the TTI shorties. I actually bought a set of TTI shorties and had them mostly swapped onto my car when I decided that they weren't any better for clearance than the Doug's (just different tight spots), and I switched back. I did a write up of that swap, and swap back, in my build thread here My "new" '74 Duster- or why I need a project like a hole in the head. After seeing TTI's in person I'd buy Doug's every single time. The TTI's were not all that impressive, especially considering the additional costs.
Because I also have the spool mount K there's no good way to shim the engine to adjust clearance either, so, if you have the earlier biscuit style engine mounts you may be able to adjust things a little better. Believe it or not, if it weren't for the 1.12" torsion bars I wouldn't have needed to dimple the Dougs at all. Just a little trimming on the bellhousing corners and everything would have been fine.
Here's a couple of pictures underneath. The driver's side is before I trimmed the end of the tab on the bell back a little, you can see that there's pretty much no extra room anywhere with the 4 speed linkage, large torsion bars, and milodon road race pan. Although honestly I don't know how you could route pipes through there any better, I think the Doug's manage it about as well as it can be done with long tubes. They pretty much have to be right where they are, moving them away from any of the tight spots would make them interfere somewhere else. The passenger side is after I trimmed the little tab on the bell back, I did the same on the driver's side later. It also shows my remote oil filter set up, I have a shorty filter on there now with no 90* adaptor, it fits fine. Both are before I added some small dimples in the headers to add some torsion bar clearance. My car is pretty close to worst case scenario though, I mean, outside of adding power steering I'm not sure there's anything I could do to reduce space for headers any more than I have already.
I just put them on my Cuda. There was a couple of times that I had to stop and rethink what I was doing but they fit with no dinging or adjusting. I also got them with no scratches to either the headers or the car. As far as the height goes I would say it's a little better but nothing exceptional. I took off my cheap Flowtechs and put the Dougs on in their place. The flange height was identical. While it's true that Dougs go above the steering linkage they drop down to the same height as the cheaper headers.
68383GTS
Well-Known Member
318, auto,mini starter,and manual steering and they fit pretty nice.
That's about it but a 340. As far as the starter goes I was reading that the starter and the headers needed to be put in at the same time. This isn't true, there's plenty of room to put the starter in afterwards.
jtkaaa07
BossMan
Good info, thanks guy's!!
jtkaaa07
BossMan
jtkaaa07
BossMan
All my buddies have TTI, just curious about these, I can get them coated for around $150 locally, so maybe by them bare.
I bought mine bare and had them coated for $150 here. I can't imagine it being a whole lot different where you are.
That must have been some set of Flowtechs, because I've never seen a set of headers that captured the steering link that wasn't a crap load lower. Even if that was true and the flanges were at the same height, with that style you have a foot and a half of exhaust pipe that is as low as the flange, which is worse than just having the flange at that height.
Flowtechs. Look at the length of pipe before the collector flange. That's a really long stretch, all with very little ground clearance
Doug's. It's hard to tell with the angle of the headers in the picture, but the driver's side pipes angle up from the collector flange. The flange is the lowest point by a decent amount.
I found that to be true with the mini-starter at least. If you angle it right it drops out.
From TTI's website. The Doug's instructions call for the same thing.
I suppose if you thought the coating would be better. Same price though really, that's about what TTI charges for the coating.
I don't know why you'd mess with it, you can get the Doug's from autozone and use an online discount for 20% off right now. code CARCARE20
http://www.autozone.com/exhaust/exh...263227_0?fromString=search&make=&model=&year=
jtkaaa07
BossMan
Cool, forgot about buying them locally, thanks for the info !!
Jeff
Jeff
I think you have to buy online and have them shipped to you for that discount to work. Shipping is free anyway with that promotion.
Low is low. My point is to dispel any notion that you're going to get any more clearance with the Doug"s. While you may flatten out that tube it's been proven that you're not going to suffer any noticeable loss. However, whatever you're going to clip with the flange on a Flowtech, you're going to clip with a Doug's just the same.
BigBlockMopar
BigBlockMember
Before I installed Doug's on my '73 Dart, the A518 oilpan was the lowest item under the car, and I set the rideheight to that... Now it's the collectors by another /12" - 5/8".
I wasn't pleased to see that after installation but there's not much you can change about it at that point.
The JetHot coating is a joke.
Installed the headers late in the year, and just 1 very mild winter with some occassional roadsalt has completely stripped the coated from the lower 1/3 of the headers.
Looks like bare rusted metal now.
Not wanting to dimple header tubes or anything, I had a hell of a time positioning the engine in its mounts properly so the tubes didn't touch the torsion bars anywhere. Access to the rightside engine mount bolt was the biggest problem actually.
I even 'pulled together' the collector ends a little when welding the X-pipe down the line, as to gain it bit more clearance at the torsion bars...
This worked fine for a couple of months, then things settled down or something and now the right side header is touching the torsion bar sometimes, which gives an annoying rattle sound whenever there's a slight load on the engine.
The engine mounts are the bushing type, and control the engine very nicely, but apparantly clearance has become so tight at the tubes that it still manages to contact the torsion bar.
I wasn't pleased to see that after installation but there's not much you can change about it at that point.
The JetHot coating is a joke.
Installed the headers late in the year, and just 1 very mild winter with some occassional roadsalt has completely stripped the coated from the lower 1/3 of the headers.
Looks like bare rusted metal now.
Not wanting to dimple header tubes or anything, I had a hell of a time positioning the engine in its mounts properly so the tubes didn't touch the torsion bars anywhere. Access to the rightside engine mount bolt was the biggest problem actually.
I even 'pulled together' the collector ends a little when welding the X-pipe down the line, as to gain it bit more clearance at the torsion bars...
This worked fine for a couple of months, then things settled down or something and now the right side header is touching the torsion bar sometimes, which gives an annoying rattle sound whenever there's a slight load on the engine.
The engine mounts are the bushing type, and control the engine very nicely, but apparantly clearance has become so tight at the tubes that it still manages to contact the torsion bar.
I loved the Dougs, but I have run both and I agree that there are points where they are about equally low.
I had no problems whatsoever with the cheap Summit headers on the 360 in my 71 Dart. I had the car at stock ride height with stock height tires and I never scraped once on the tallest speed breaker. If your car is lowered and you have low profile tires, you might want to rethink the cheaper headers. I used the Dougs only because at the time, they were the only ones who offered headers to fit my 65 Valiant. This was about 1997. The Dougs were about the easiest to install and best fitting header I have ever used........besides anything with a Chevy engine.
But again I stress, if your car is stock ride height with stock height tires, the cheaper headers will work for you. If I do another 67-up A body, that is what I will use.
I had no problems whatsoever with the cheap Summit headers on the 360 in my 71 Dart. I had the car at stock ride height with stock height tires and I never scraped once on the tallest speed breaker. If your car is lowered and you have low profile tires, you might want to rethink the cheaper headers. I used the Dougs only because at the time, they were the only ones who offered headers to fit my 65 Valiant. This was about 1997. The Dougs were about the easiest to install and best fitting header I have ever used........besides anything with a Chevy engine.
But again I stress, if your car is stock ride height with stock height tires, the cheaper headers will work for you. If I do another 67-up A body, that is what I will use.
Are you talking about the Doug's? Mine were stainless. I thought they all were.
BigBlockMopar
BigBlockMember
I believe they are available in 3 versions.
I got the JetHot coated ones, thinking they might last a while...
But it became obvious quickly the coated will not survive some roadsalt.
Here's a fairly recent pic of the underside of my, at the time 10 months old Doug's Headers (but I think any coated header, even TTI's would have looked like this perhaps);
I got the JetHot coated ones, thinking they might last a while...
But it became obvious quickly the coated will not survive some roadsalt.
Here's a fairly recent pic of the underside of my, at the time 10 months old Doug's Headers (but I think any coated header, even TTI's would have looked like this perhaps);
That’s not true at all. I mean sure, if you’re going across a uniform height speedbump that’s wider than your car that might be true, and even then it makes a difference how close the low spot is to the suspension. The worst spot for clearance is halfway between the wheels if you’re taking speed bumps. But realistically, the ground you travel over is never flat, and the more stuff you have at that lower height the more likely you are to bash it on something. Especially if that thing isn’t parallel with the body of the car. You’re a heck of a lot more likely to snag that length of pipe than the point of a collector.
Low profile tires don’t have anything to do with it. My low profile tires are still taller than anything you could get stock. Overall tire height is what you have to pay attention to.
It does in the context I was speaking of, because I was not talking about huge non stock size wheels.
Man the ceramic coating on my Doug's has held up great, with the one exception of where my remote oil filter hoses were leaking oil on the header. It burned off a bit there there. The reducers don't look great (they weren't coated though), but the headers are still nice even under the car. They've been on the car for almost 4 years now...
Just tiny stock ones. Gotcha. Well "low profile" usually means an aspect ratio less than 50, and either way that still doesn't mean much of anything by itself unless you know the width of the tire and the diameter of the rim. Probably not a whole lotta folks running "low profile" tires on 14" rims though.
Rocking those sub-23" tall tires! Heck you can't even get tires for 14" rims with an aspect ratio lower than 50, 225/50/14 were the lowest profile I could find. Now you can get some 225/45/13's though, those are low profile.And a whopping 20.8" tall too.
Man the ceramic coating on my Doug's has held up great, with the one exception of where my remote oil filter hoses were leaking oil on the header. It burned off a bit there there. The reducers don't look great (they weren't coated though), but the headers are still nice even under the car. They've been on the car for almost 4 years now...
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Just tiny stock ones. Gotcha. Well "low profile" usually means an aspect ratio less than 50, and either way that still doesn't mean much of anything by itself unless you know the width of the tire and the diameter of the rim. Probably not a whole lotta folks running "low profile" tires on 14" rims though.
And a whopping 20.8" tall too.
I am well aware of tire sizes, being in the business for a long time. Not everybody likes short sidewalls. Every time this comes up, you find it necessary to lambaste stock height tires and stock ride heights as if they are the plague. People have different opinions and tastes. Not all the same as you.
We have a moderator and a couple of other members here who run the Summit style headers on their cars sitting at stock ride heights with stock height tires with zero scraping issues.
How do you think it makes people feel when someone like you keeps running down those type cars.....and you are doing that. Do you think they will be compelled to share their builds? Or do you think they will just forget it? Why not just not respond unless it's something positive? People who are newbies deserve every answer from every angle.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to afford Dougs or TTIs.
No Rob, apparently you aren't aware. "low profile" literally means a tire with an aspect ratio of less than 50. That's not my definition, that's the definition. So, you used the term incorrectly. You can't even BUY low profile tires for 14" rims, which was the stock rim size on most of these cars. Yes, I tried to be funny pointing it out. Mostly at your expense. Sorry that didn't come across as funny.
As far as the rest of the nonsense, you post negatively about lowered cars, cars with low profile tires, and cars with larger diameter rims all the time. You did it right in this thread. Which is why you think I constantly bash stock cars, because every time you post BS about pro-touring builds I follow it up by going after stock cars to make your BS obvious. But until I tried to poke some fun at you, I hadn't said one negative thing in this thread. I help plenty of people on this site figure out what size tires will fit their 14" and 15" rims, what backspaces will work for 14" and 15" rims, etc. And I skip a whole heck of a lot of threads that are about stock cars. My whole inbox is full of tire and rim questions, and quite a few of them are for 15" rims and stock-ish sized tires. I answer those just like I answer ones about 18" rims and tires. Newbies and regulars alike. Yes, I bash on some hockey puck tires. But normally only when someone asks, or someone like you makes a negative comment about running larger diameter wheels or modern tires. I have my moments, but, so do you.
As for the headers, I never said the Flowtechs would scrape on a car at stock ride height. Never addressed it at all. I said they had less clearance, and I explained why having a whole length of pipe at a low clearance was worse than having just a header flange at the same height. That's it. And that's true. The Flowtechs do hang lower, and they have more exhaust pipe at lower clearances. But I didn't tell anyone not to run Flowtechs, or not to run at the stock ride height. I didn't link all the threads that have people saying how they bashed their flowtechs or similarly designed below-the-steering-link headers flat on speed bumps. I didn't tell anyone to lower their car, run low profile tires, or big wheels. I just said the Doug's had better ground clearance, and they DO. I didn't say one negative thing about Flowtechs, I just pointed out some drawbacks that they really do have. And I drive a lowered car, so, believe me I know what gets caught on speed bumps.
As for bashing other people's builds, don't make me do a search and post all the negative things you've said about pro-touring style builds. Because you have a lot of posts. And a lot of them bash things you don't like, they are negative, and a lot of them are downright discouraging. I know. So if you want to guilt me about causing people to not post their builds, you better delete a few thousand posts of yours. Because if I let your BS bother me, I would never have posted anything about my car on this site. So if the pot is done calling the kettle black, maybe we can move on with this thread.
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oi81b4uu812b4
Well-Known Member
You know, you can't build anything these days without someone telling you it's ugly or they know a guy who had a car once that was better than anything I or anyone on here will ever have.
Here's the deal. Most stuff on this site is about fab work or modifications. If someone thinks their car is stock or better just because they still roll on 14" rims, you will hear that person whine with smart *** comments about how any car with rims bigger than 16" diameter are ugly junk, those rims all break and bend just driving around... The fact is though, none of the cars on here are without modifications. So, they sure the hell aren't stock.
I come on here to read about a persons project when it relates to my own project, then I disappear.
Here's the deal. Most stuff on this site is about fab work or modifications. If someone thinks their car is stock or better just because they still roll on 14" rims, you will hear that person whine with smart *** comments about how any car with rims bigger than 16" diameter are ugly junk, those rims all break and bend just driving around... The fact is though, none of the cars on here are without modifications. So, they sure the hell aren't stock.
I come on here to read about a persons project when it relates to my own project, then I disappear.
Speed bumps are the worst almost exactly where the flanges are, because the frt on most rides will jounce the most after going over it, and they are directly behind to
do a nice job of catching it. Sure if You are aware the bump is there and have slowed to a crawl, then it is simply the measured clearance no matter what position. It's
crossing the "break-over" such as turning off a street into a driveway or intersecting road that is steeply graded down from the street level that'll getcha in the middle.
I think Rusty's point was simple enuff, if 'Ya plan on slammin' the ride for whatever reason, and by whatever method/means, expect less than stellar clearance from any
of them no matter how good.
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