A block exhaust manifold solutions
After a couple of weeks of asking around, and further time to search this board, pretty much I've come to the conclusions that there is no "magic" manifold for those of us with power steering in our A bodies. We're just scr... uh, "exhaust disadvantaged". And I'm not about to give up my PS. But having manual steering instead, opens up a number of possibilities that are not otherwise available.
However, I also found a couple of dyno test results, using a Magnum style 360, where they did a comparison between a few of the common exhaust alternatives. Note that in one of them, there was only 4 HP difference at the peak power RPM of 4500-4600 RPM, between stock 1969 318 manifolds (which I assume is very close if not identical to my stock 67 273 manifolds) and the vaunted 340 Magnum manifolds (however, this was not linear across the RPM range). And only like 16 HP difference between the peak power produced by the 318 manifolds and the peak power of the TTI headers (which posted the best results).
Are the 340 manifolds better, yup. Are headers better, yup. At this point am I gong to worry about it, nope. I'm just going to use the 273 manifolds that I have. With the cam selection that I've made for my 360, it's not going to matter that much. I will look for a better solution when I have the car running. I've got like less than 3 weeks to get a vehicle running that hasn't for 15 years. I have plenty of other more important things to worry about.
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http://www.moparts.org/Tech/Archive/exhaust/9.html)
and
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http://www.moparmusclemagazine.com/...pp_0307_mopar_crate_engine_exhaust/index.html)
im interested in knowing which truck and/or Dakota to go yank the manifolds off of as well. I'm in the EXACT same boat as Karl