magnum manifolds in a early a

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Those pics look to show about 2" on the passenger side & 1.5" on the driver's. (Just my best guess) What's the clearance of the head pipes to the floorboards? Whatever, these just don't look like terribly difficult challenges to meet. I've ordered a set of the manifolds and look forward to the installation.

BC
 
tried to install a set on my 70 Dart with p/s, won't work without massive grinding and frigging
 
The pictures showing space between these manifolds and firewall would be deceiving in that they cant show the heat transfer. Comparing where these manifolds dump to the stock manifolds will at least give you insight to why the originals were made different in the first place.
The first thing I would try for a cure is a simple sheet metal heat shield which seemed to work in other places from starters to cat' converters, and many places under modern cars. If it reaches high enough to catch some air flow and 2 ears at the flange bolts stand it off far enough to prevent a wind noise at road speed, it could actually cool the down pipes too.
Nothing more than a gear screw clamp would secure the lower end regardless how long it is.
 
Or even cut a piece of sticky heat shield and stick it to the firewall right behind the pipe.
 
Ok here is my y pipe I threw a little wrap on it since we had some.
Hoping that will hep with the heat.
2.25" head pipes to a 3" flow master y.
Didn't want to deal with duals. Sounds pretty neat with just the y.
Can't believe how quiet it is already.
 

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[FONT=&quot]I just dropped the motor in my 65 Barracuda last Monday, and it seems to fit with very little modifications. I’m using manifolds out of a 96 Ram with 2” outlets and I what I did (with advice and information I got from this great forum!) was shave the driver side manifold 0.200”, and with new motor mounts then added a ½ spacers I made on either side to raise the motor up some. The stock coupling is close but it does clear the manifold just fine. I will have to cut 2” off the steering column sleeve and with the spacers in place the engine does tilt back a little but everything still clears just fine and if this would bother you then you could always shim the transmission to get it back in line (I don’t think it will be a problem however). I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow[/FONT]
 
That's one of the things that I've wondered about. The factories design the drivelines with specific dimensions, angles, etc & folks regularly add shims and such. In your case, Valkman, raising the front of the engine 1/2" would seem to call for maybe just 1/4th" at the tranny mount. That would bring the driveline angles back to NEARLY what the engineers called for, I think.

What I have NO grasp of is just how critical are the angles, anyway??? I'd hate to have the front U-joint blow up in a hundred, or a thousand, or 10 thousand miles. Maybe worse than that would be driving around gritting my teeth, worried that I had prepared my driveline for an early death and set myself up for the legendary "pole vault of doom"

BC
 
That's one of the things that I've wondered about. The factories design the drivelines with specific dimensions, angles, etc & folks regularly add shims and such. In your case, Valkman, raising the front of the engine 1/2" would seem to call for maybe just 1/4th" at the tranny mount. That would bring the driveline angles back to NEARLY what the engineers called for, I think.

What I have NO grasp of is just how critical are the angles, anyway??? I'd hate to have the front U-joint blow up in a hundred, or a thousand, or 10 thousand miles. Maybe worse than that would be driving around gritting my teeth, worried that I had prepared my driveline for an early death and set myself up for the legendary "pole vault of doom"

BC

Because of the u-jolt, drive shaft yoke and the rubber mounting point there is a bit of room for error when it comes to drive train alignment. People do all kinds of drive train swaps and modifications, when you doing so you definitely have take into consideration drive shaft angles and more importantly the fore and aft movement of the drive shaft. When l did this I checked this out and there seems to be plenty of movement left in the yoke. As far as angles go the 1/2" I've tilted the motor is very minor when compared to the angle changes experienced when the rear axle hits a bump. Having said that, this still a work in progress. It will be a while until I get my car on the road still, and if I do have any drivetrain issues, which I feel is unlikely, l'm pretty sure shimming the transmission to re-align the driveline should fix it. I'm not saying I have all the answers but I don't mind "giving it the old college try" :D to see if it will work!
 
Here are some pictures of how it looks, sorry for the bad angle but it does clear by a 1/2" or so.
 

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In a perfect world the axis of the trans output shaft is parallel to the axis of the diff. input shaft. This would be true for up and down and side to side . The amount we are talking about here will not make much of different. The more things are off the shorter the u-joint life up to $#?/\%. The comment about shimming the trans mount sound good.
 
In a perfect world the axis of the trans output shaft is parallel to the axis of the diff. input shaft. This would be true for up and down and side to side . The amount we are talking about here will not make much of different. The more things are off the shorter the u-joint life up to $#?/\%. The comment about shimming the trans mount sound good.

Love that "in a perfect world..." line, because this one sure ain't. Then when ya factor in working on old MOPARS, the opportunities for difficulties increase dramatically. I just made a S.W.A.G. about shimming the tranny mount half as much as the engine mounts. That should bring the angle on the front joint closer to original. I haven't found any of the several write-ups on driveline alignment to offer suggestions as to how much misalignment was too much. Just seems like the closer to factory you can get, the better.

BC
 
Maybe I'm missing something. I think the shims need to be equal amount to maintain the same plane ?
 
I think you're right, Red. The planes of the tranny output shaft and the pinion gear shaft SHOULD be parallel! I have little grasp of the physics involved, but maybe keeping those planes parallel minimizes wear on the U joints?? Thanks for catching that!

BC
 
We're not looking at extreme angle changes here. I would think when someone raises or lowers their car moving rear axle would cause much more of an angle change. I do think it would be ideal to have a perfectly straight alignment of drive train, but I'm pretty confident that my drive shaft won't fly of going down the road. Having said that I will have to observe any abnormal wear on the U-jolts.

One other factor I've noticed it that raising the Engine. It has caused another minor problem, the kickdowm linkage is hitting the transmission tunnel (this would became even a bigger problem if I raised the transmission side). I'm using a later model linkage (don't know what year) and it has bulky square pivot end. I may be able to correct this by relocating the pivot arm on the transmission, unfortunately this won't as easy to do with the transmission in the car!
 
We're not looking at extreme angle changes here. I would think when someone raises or lowers their car moving rear axle would cause much more of an angle change. I do think it would be ideal to have a perfectly straight alignment of drive train, but I'm pretty confident that my drive shaft won't fly of going down the road. Having said that I will have to observe any abnormal wear on the U-jolts.

One other factor I've noticed it that raising the Engine. It has caused another minor problem, the kickdowm linkage is hitting the transmission tunnel (this would became even a bigger problem if I raised the transmission side). I'm using a later model linkage (don't know what year) and it has bulky square pivot end. I may be able to correct this by relocating the pivot arm on the transmission, unfortunately this won't as easy to do with the transmission in the car!

A throttle pressure / kick down cable setup from Lokar would solve those issues
 
Probably over thinking it, yet would the coupler being so close to the manifolds affect the grease inside or the coupler metal? My current early-a manifolds are eerily close to the coupler already (318, 65 valiant, manual steering. schumacker mounts). Its good to know I can still use the stock coupler with these manifolds (I have a set just haven't attempted installation yet).
 
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