Budget headers for small block

340sFastback said
The cheap headers will perform well if you can get them to seal up, don't have to dent them half closed to get them to fit, and don't crunch them because of the poor ground clearance. And the cheap ones are usually very difficult to install and trap the starter. Once you go through the grief of cheap headers you'll wish you paid more for some better ones.

I can only speak for Hedmans:

I didn't need to dent anything to make them clear every thing (I have heard people complain about needing to dent the tubes of TTI's to clear auto trannies). I also swapped from manual to power steering a couple of years ago and there still was no clearance issues. I have over 20k miles on mine now since installing the 360 in 05 and have never had them touch anything in the road way, I am careful going over speed bumps but I am careful with all my vehicles going over speed bumps.

I had the full size starter crap out on me in 06 and I was able to remove it without touching the header. I did disconnect the center link and crank the wheel left to move the pitman arm toward the passenger side and the full size starter comes right out. I replaced that starter with a mini starter, no clearance issues and that can be R&R'd without dropping the center link.

I have installed quite a few headers over the years and they all have been a pain to one degree or another. The passenger side Hedman goes in as painlessly as any header does. The drivers side is also relatively painless if you first remove the steering column (20 minutes) and unbolt the steering box (5 minutes). If you do that there is no need to jack the motor up.

The Hedmans use a ball socket on the collector verse the more traditional flange. This is by far a superior way to mate your exhaust system to the headers, they seal with no gasket and will accommodate some mis alignment of the pipes. The thickness of the flanges is the only down side to the Hedmans as far as I am concerned. I did try several different gaskets to seal them up before settling on double Fel-Pros with high temp silicone sealer. It's been over 20k miles now and I just now have a small leak starting but it's quite easy to get at the fasteners if you use reduced head size bolts so it's only going to take me 20-30 minute to swap in new gaskets.

The TTIs are a nice piece but you could purchase 5 sets of Hedmans for the cost of a set of TTIs. If some one was to give mea set of TTIs tomorrow I would likely sell them purchase a set of Hedmans and use the profit to get some else I need.