Workmanship rant

I bought a set of Patriot headers and they were top-quality. But they were about the only parts I bought for that project that were. I swear, I don't know why manufacturers are turning out such crap these days. At least it's expensive...

Pics of the problem areas?

1320stang said:

Pics of the problem areas?

Click to expand...

I was wondering the same. I don't grind down my welds on headers tubing. Also the many pieces welded together, could be the bends are so close together the machine can't do them. So you have to cut and paste. Which is the case with cars as engine bays as small as ours.

Accufab does weld small sections together for there 65/66 swap headers. There is minimal clearance in the car and the bends needed are probably hard to make on a bending machine on a single piece of 1 3/4" pipe. If you had $1200 custom headers made, I would expect that they would do it basically the same way. You will be hard pressed to find any header made for this swap that will fit and look perfect. These engine compartments are narrow and were never meant to hold anything wider or taller than a 289 dimensioned motor.

As I stated, don't expect them to fit perfect as some minor clearancing may be needed. I had to dimple the shock tower in a couple of places and remove some of the flange found on the Lakewood bellhousing, both of which are commonly know problems with large, full length swap headers.

Here a couple pictures of my "used" accufabs that were out during my recent engine freshening:





In the car:







At one time I had Tubular Automotive 351w swap headers. They had only 1 1/2" tubes which were each bent from a single piece of pipe. The tubes were equal length and the collectors were 2 1/2" in diameter. Terrible fit and the damn things dragged the ground like a plow harrow.

Overall, I am pleased with the fit of my Accufabs. They have excellent ground clearance, which I feel is their strongest asset:



If you want good looks and fit (but lower performance), I suggest looking for some shorty type headers.

The only thing I can fault in Dennis' pics is the first joint in the second tube in the top pic. The 2nd piece doesn't line up well with the first at the rear, at first I thought I was looking at tube bent with a regular exhaust tubing bender.

The welds all look fine to me, like typical race car headers. This is the only good pic I can find on the 'net with welded up headers. Typically you start with a pile of 180 U bends and cut them up to make it fit. You can see the welds easily enough though not detailed.

http://www.racingjunk.com/post/802067/Kooks-BBC-Dragster-Headers.html