| No matter what kind of car you have, or what you plan to do
to it, installing a set of headers should be one of the first-and possibly
easiest bolt-on upgrades you make. Freeing up the exhaust frees up horsepower,
and the rumble of individual pipes never hurt the look and sound of a mean
machine traversing the boulevard. But not all decisions are easy when it
comes to choosing an exhaust alternative. One of the first problems associated
with installing tubular headers is usually the fact that the current engine
in your ride might not be the same size or shape as the original. This was
not too much of a problem for us since a small-block will usually fit nicely
in any engine compartment. Depending on the car in question, the steering
box, the transmission, the front suspension, and its ground clearance will
be the greatest factors in determining what type of manifolds or headers
can be used. |
In this quick tech segment, our goal is to show you just what
it took to determine what type of headers would work with our little Deuce's
potent 355-inch mouse, which replaced the original six-banger. To be more
specific, we started out with a set of conventional full-length, under-chassis-style
headers, which were useless after realizing this design not only rested
against the passenger-side subframe rail, but the driver-side collector
dumped straight out into the transmission's shift lever. Had the car been
equipped with a Turbo 350 instead of the Powerglide, only one of our dilemmas
would have been solved. So we took this as a learning experience and thought
we'd share it with you (You know, a "don't waste your time" type
of thing). Now we were left with the dilemma of finding another set of headers,
mostly because the motor has been hot rodded enough to need the extra breathability. |
Fortunately for us, Classic Performance Products offers a
system built exactly for small-block-powered Novas. It's a good thing
because we had almost given in to using factory ram-horn-style manifolds,
which would have worked, but how cool would that be? And besides, we needed
a performance header for more than just aesthetic reasons, As you will see
on the following pages, CPP put a lot of time and forethought into building
a header that would drop into place, easily clear all of the above-mentioned
obstacles and allow a built small-block to breathe as It should. In addition,
these headers really gave the engine compartment some much-needed flavor
with the up-to-date look and longevity of their ceramic-metallic coating.
Finally, unlike many header-installation projects we've all encountered,
the CPP headers literally slipped into place and bolted to the heads with
no problems. |
