Gen 5 F-body headers installed in my 63

[Super73]

For those that care, I was running Edelbrock 1 3/4 stepped to 1 7/8 headers previously. I believe others might have tried them with out success. I do run a motor plate and mid plate with the motor as far back as possible. I can only put one bolt in the passenger rear coil pack that should tell you how far back it is.

In the search for a bigger primary, I have tried kooks gen 4 Camaro headers only to have them hit the frame and kooks TBSS headers only to hit my 6-bolt heads.

Today I managed to get a set of Texas speed gen-5 2" primary headers in with very little work to the passenger frame rail and my mid plate on the drivers side.

For those in search of larger primaries, these may be an oprtion if you are willing to get the grinder out.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Hart_Rod]

Originally Posted by Super73

For those that care, I was running Edelbrock 1 3/4 stepped to 1 7/8 headers previously. I believe others might have tried them with out success. I do run a motor plate and mid plate with the motor as far back as possible. I can only put one bolt in the passenger rear coil pack that should tell you how far back it is.

In the search for a bigger primary, I have tried kooks gen 4 Camaro headers only to have them hit the frame and kooks TBSS headers only to hit my 6-bolt heads.

Today I managed to get a set of Texas speed gen-5 2" primary headers in with very little work to the passenger frame rail and my mid plate on the drivers side.

For those in search of larger primaries, these may be an oprtion if you are willing to get the grinder out.
Posted via Mobile Device

Thanks for the info, but ...........

[BigDan3131]

Thanks Super,

I see they sell them in 1 3/4" also which would be just right for a milder motor and the price is almost dirt cheap for either.

[Super73]

Dan, before you spend the money on the 1 3/4 headers, I would suggest you consider the 1 7/8 instead. Every dyno I have seen has shown gains when 1 3/4 is swapped to a 1 7/8. Even stock head cam only set ups.


But with that said, I just went out and measured the cross section on a 97/98 head I have laying around. 1.53 wide and 1.30 tall.

Then I went out and measured the I.D. Of my old headers at 1.60"


Obviously the header is not creating a shelf or blockage (in my case the old headers were, my cross section on the exhaust port is 1.75"). So that leads me to ask why a motor would still respond better with a slightly over sized tube?

My only conclusion would be the fact that a header installed on most vehicles has an almost immediate bend. Even if they are mandrel bent, the air still needs to turn. Being the moment the valve opens, exhaust is super sonic. The slightly bigger tube may be allowing the air to not only move through the bend faster, but the immediate discharge may be wanting to expand the instant it gets out of the extremely hot cyl in to a cooler tube.

For that reason (expanding gases), stepped headers really are the best option. I am at some point considering modifying these since they were sooo cheap. I could see a 2 1/8 step with a 3.5" high velocity merge collector in the somewhat near future.
Posted via Mobile Device

[BigDan3131]

Thank you, those are good points to think about.

[68GMCCustom]

Comments make me glad I went with 1 7/8" primaries and 3" collectors and for street use, 2" dumped exhaust...which some would say is too big. but sounds like when I finally get really serious about lowering ET's (running n/a) with this truck...I may have to go bigger?