A Body Shorty Stainless Headers
Thanks for the support guys, much appreciated. My original idea was to make a header a cross between the 5.0 shorty header and the old max wedge factory manifolds. I think I acomplished it with the header I built for my GTS. It will be much harder to make as nice of a peice for a car with the factory Z bar, it plain is right in the way of everything. The power steering and the brake booster isnt so bad, its the damn Z bar. I might have to use a flat style collector to make it work. Now that youve all spoken up, I do see promise, and your right, there were so many shorty mustang headers sold it was unbelievable. I personally dont like headers on a street car, they hang too low, so that was the reason to do this project. A body mopars are also by far one of the hardest cars to make a good set of headers for, and to install, there are harder, I could make a list of them, but A bodys are bad. My A body race headers believe it or not, install easily, there a puzzle of parts, but you dont have to move the engine to get them in, my BB A body Race Headers are the same way.
I would like to make the left side easy to install, but with the Z bar, power steering, and the booster in the way, it might not be as easy as I hope. I want to make to to where the exhaust levels out so that it will be easy to fit to any exhaust system. I dont want the customer to have to make the bend towards the back of the car, I would rather make that part of the header so its tucked up nicely and high with good ground clearance. The ball and socket idea is very good, and as you said , eliminates gaskets, which I dont personally like due to possible leaks. I think a 1 5/8" header will work well, good for up to about 400 hp, more than most street cars would have. When the prototypes are all said and done, ill look into other materials, as you said, there are other cheaper stainless steels out there, I just didnt think about. that, im used to using 304 and 321 SS.
Thanks Again Guys
Mark Lelchook
Performance Welding
Racing Headers