Headers

Had a set of headers made for my 638 C-head build. They are 2 1/4 stepped to 2 3/8. I'm not too pleased at the way they turned out and i guess that's what i get for going with the cheaper price. The primaries are not equal length and i can understand that because the engine is in a 1979 f250 mud truck and it would be very hard to get each tube equal but what i really don't like is that the 2 1/4 tubing coming off the head is nowhere close to being equal on each primary. For instance, on one tube, the 2 1/4 piece is 12 inches long and on the next tube its 17 inches long. And overall, some of the primary tubes differ in length by as much as 10-12 inches. How much is this gonna effect exhaust flow and what will it do for horsepower/torque numbers? I would think you would want as close to equal length as possible for everything you do on each header tube so the exhaust gas will be doing the same thing exiting each port. Am i really overthinking this since its for a heavy mud truck and not a 2500# pro stock car? Any opinions will be appreciated.

BBF552 wrote:Had a set of headers made for my 638 C-head build. They are 2 1/4 stepped to 2 3/8. I'm not too pleased at the way they turned out and i guess that's what i get for going with the cheaper price. The primaries are not equal length and i can understand that because the engine is in a 1979 f250 mud truck and it would be very hard to get each tube equal but what i really don't like is that the 2 1/4 tubing coming off the head is nowhere close to being equal on each primary. For instance, on one tube, the 2 1/4 piece is 12 inches long and on the next tube its 17 inches long. And overall, some of the primary tubes differ in length by as much as 10-12 inches. How much is this gonna effect exhaust flow and what will it do for horsepower/torque numbers? I would think you would want as close to equal length as possible for everything you do on each header tube so the exhaust gas will be doing the same thing exiting each port. Am i really overthinking this since its for a heavy mud truck and not a 2500# pro stock car? Any opinions will be appreciated.

no good, the steps have to be the same lenght

Thats what i was thinking. Well that was a waste of $1700

To be honest I'd bet on a dyno the difference between a perfect set and what you have mite be 20 hp
Frank

BBF552 wrote:Had a set of headers made for my 638 C-head build. They are 2 1/4 stepped to 2 3/8. I'm not too pleased at the way they turned out and i guess that's what i get for going with the cheaper price. The primaries are not equal length and i can understand that because the engine is in a 1979 f250 mud truck and it would be very hard to get each tube equal but what i really don't like is that the 2 1/4 tubing coming off the head is nowhere close to being equal on each primary. For instance, on one tube, the 2 1/4 piece is 12 inches long and on the next tube its 17 inches long. And overall, some of the primary tubes differ in length by as much as 10-12 inches. How much is this gonna effect exhaust flow and what will it do for horsepower/torque numbers? I would think you would want as close to equal length as possible for everything you do on each header tube so the exhaust gas will be doing the same thing exiting each port. Am i really overthinking this since its for a heavy mud truck and not a 2500# pro stock car? Any opinions will be appreciated.

The designer was sure after a wide, WIDE torque band.

BBF552 wrote:Had a set of headers made for my 638 C-head build. They are 2 1/4 stepped to 2 3/8. I'm not too pleased at the way they turned out and i guess that's what i get for going with the cheaper price. The primaries are not equal length and i can understand that because the engine is in a 1979 f250 mud truck and it would be very hard to get each tube equal but what i really don't like is that the 2 1/4 tubing coming off the head is nowhere close to being equal on each primary. For instance, on one tube, the 2 1/4 piece is 12 inches long and on the next tube its 17 inches long. And overall, some of the primary tubes differ in length by as much as 10-12 inches. How much is this gonna effect exhaust flow and what will it do for horsepower/torque numbers? I would think you would want as close to equal length as possible for everything you do on each header tube so the exhaust gas will be doing the same thing exiting each port. Am i really overthinking this since its for a heavy mud truck and not a 2500# pro stock car? Any opinions will be appreciated.

a good test was an engine we dynoed last year, 500'' with his headers, then after makeing a few pulls installed a set of my guys real stepped headers added 30hp avg

chim in /\ AD. this was your engine.

have always gained power.tq with a good step header,
keep in mine the collector is just as important as is the math for sizing

these headers are 3000.00

BBF552 wrote:Had a set of headers made for my 638 C-head build. They are 2 1/4 stepped to 2 3/8. I'm not too pleased at the way they turned out and i guess that's what i get for going with the cheaper price. The primaries are not equal length and i can understand that because the engine is in a 1979 f250 mud truck and it would be very hard to get each tube equal but what i really don't like is that the 2 1/4 tubing coming off the head is nowhere close to being equal on each primary. For instance, on one tube, the 2 1/4 piece is 12 inches long and on the next tube its 17 inches long. And overall, some of the primary tubes differ in length by as much as 10-12 inches. How much is this gonna effect exhaust flow and what will it do for horsepower/torque numbers? I would think you would want as close to equal length as possible for everything you do on each header tube so the exhaust gas will be doing the same thing exiting each port. Am i really overthinking this since its for a heavy mud truck and not a 2500# pro stock car? Any opinions will be appreciated.

IMO 10-12 inches is a very big difference in primary length a couple not too bad. one thing to keep in mind with the step is the smaller tube may be slipped into the bigger tube a larger amount making the smaller diameter appear shorter on some. also a 17" first step seems long to me but other more experienced people have already responded.

wayne

If I would have known then what I know now, I wouldn't have gotten this guy to build them anyway. He showed me several pics of headers that he had previously built and they looked great but I'm thinking now that he just used pics of someone else's work. He mig welded everything instead of tig welding, so if you look inside the tubes there is just as much weld on the inside as the outside of the tubes. From so much heat being used, it warped the header flanges so I had to cut each one into individual tubes so they would bolt up. And instead of welding the tabs i gave him onto my nice merge collectors where they can be removed, he welds them straight to the header. And must I add all this is stainless so it wasn't cheap at all. Guess that's what u get when u try somebody new to do work. I'll probably toss these in the dumpster and start over.

Don't toss em in the dumpster!!...cut em up and re-use as much as you can. Dissect them, grind off all the sloppy welding junk, and trim each piece so you have a nice clean straight edge to start from. There may be some parts that go to waste, but if you can minimize that, you'll be money ahead....I mean considering that you have to rebuild them!!

He mig'd SS??? Yikes!

Yes he mig welded it. Weld splatter everywhere on the tubes and u could see where he had to fill holes where he was burning through and just used big puddles of weld to fill them.

Have you had a talk with him?

Tried calling and texting him several times and no response. He knows he messed up but I guess he took the money and ran with it

I'll take this as a lesson learned

You paid this guy without inspecting the product first??

I was willing to deal with the mig weld and splatter part of it but never looked inside the tubes and saw the weld on the inside til I got home. And disn't realize they were warped til I tried bolting them on

And never took in effect how much of a difference the length of each tube was til I got home and started measuring with a tape

BBFTorino wrote: You paid this guy without inspecting the product first??

Of Course ... just about everything in this business is paid in advance; especially custom.

In this business in particular, people seem to always have some issue going on and don't pay their past bills.