Shorty Headers

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Detroit Iron

Detroit Iron

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I'm going to be building a 360 in the near future, so I'm starting to think about things now. The engine will be mild, and used as a daily driver. I have another car with 340 exhaust manifolds on it, so I want to run headers on this car. As of now, I'm thinking shorty headers.... most likely TTI. My thinking is this.... full size headers seem like '60s-'80s technology. They hang down so far, there are fitment issues etc. New cars that are performance oriented basically have shorty headers on them from the factory.

I'd like to hear what you all have to say about shorty headers... pro or con. Thanks for the input.
 
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Shorties rob your wallet and horsepower.
The drivers headpipe ends up looking like the plumbing under your kitchen sinks trying to get around the steering gear .
(I have often asked for a posted pic of the headpipe from those that say they're going to try them, no pix yet .pls post a pic, if you do .)
They cost near what modern, engine hugger, tuned, scavenging, great ground clearance, no leak, ceramic Doug's or TTI headers .
Manifolds or Doug's .
AutoZone often has Doug's on sale 20ish% off, free shipping. Other retailers will price match .
Good luck .
jmo.


EDIT . .
 
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Detroit Iron said:
I'm going to be building a 360 in the near future, so I'm starting to think about things now. The engine will be mild, and used as a daily driver. I have a car with 340 exhaust manifolds on it, so I want to run headers on this car. As of now, I'm thinking shorty headers.... most likely TTI. My thinking is this.... full size headers seem like '60s-'80s technology. They hang down so far, there are fitment issues etc. New cars that are performance oriented basically have shorty headers on them from the factory.

I'd like to hear what you all have to say about shorty headers... pro or con. Thanks for the input.
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Manifold and header shootout

Installing Exhaust Headers Into 300hp Crate Engine - Mopar Muscle Magazine
 
in a mild application shorties offer nothing when compared to 340 manifolds. long tubes with collectors will pick up hp & torque across the band and while the gain is not tremendous that little bump of 10% or so can convert into drivability and throttle response.

with more aggressive cam, intake and heads the gains increase. both Dougs & TTI are about as good as you can get fitment wise without going to a full custom header.

I had 340 manifolds on my 64 & 65 darts (360 w/ magnum heads & M1) and switched to shorty headers and there was no applicable difference (rwhp/tq remained nearly the same). I then upgraded to Dougs in the 65 and immediately noticed the difference in the "butt dyno" and overall performance of the car.
 
Detroit Iron said:
I'm going to be building a 360 in the near future, so I'm starting to think about things now. The engine will be mild, and used as a daily driver. I have another car with 340 exhaust manifolds on it, so I want to run headers on this car. As of now, I'm thinking shorty headers.... most likely TTI. My thinking is this.... full size headers seem like '60s-'80s technology. They hang down so far, there are fitment issues etc. New cars that are performance oriented basically have shorty headers on them from the factory.

I'd like to hear what you all have to say about shorty headers... pro or con. Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...
I put Dougs in my 70 Duster. Fitment was ok, had to slightly modify some of the tubes because they touched the torsion bars (I replaced the OE bars with 1.03). Ground clearance is excellent. I'd do it again.
 
If you want shorty headers just because(I did too) I did a install a few years back on a 68 Valiant 273.
Under Articles, How Too I believe. TTI shorties and their complete exhaust.
inertia made a good point,mine being a 273 with 2.76 rear I saw little benefit.
Yes the driver side down pipe may or may not be restrictive as it looks,designed to clear column shift cars.
As far as ease of installation,the easiest headers I ever did.
As stated above I bought them just to try as I installed over 20 or so sets of TTI long tube on various Mopars.

IMG_2622.jpg


IMG_2619.jpg
 
TTI Shorties on a Stroked 360 Magnum.

Perfect fit, excellent performance, ceramic finish is holding up well after 5 years and 7000 miles. Extremely easy to install and remove and makes underhood maintemance much easier. Also, with a 4-speed helps tuck the exhaust up much tighter to the floorpan for ground clearance.

BTW. Excellent service from TTI who recommended this setup.

See pics below.





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HERE"S HOW IT SOUNDS!!

 
I got a lot of flack here, but I installed shorty headers because I couldn't find the 340 manifolds for a reasonable price. The shorties flow better than the tiny 273 manifolds that I had.
I went with Sanderson because they were cheaper than TTI. They required modification to one tube to clear the steering column.
You didn't say if you're wanting to install in a narrow body or a later body. I ordered the DD8 for my 67, but I am curious if the DD9 (meant for the early cars) would fit the 67 without modifications.

Installation was super easy. Passenger side fell into place. Driver side required lifting the engine an inch or so. Then I had the exhaust shop make the head pipes.

Here's a link to my blog where I show the install of the Sanderson headers:
dartslantsix.wordpress.com

Shorty Headers Installed

This turned into a longer project than I wanted, but it’s done. I also learned some things that I want to share with you.
dartslantsix.wordpress.com dartslantsix.wordpress.com

IMG_E1072.JPG


IMG_1070.JPG
 
Worst spot is clearing the shift linkage. But TTI has it nailed. No issues. Love the TTI package. Don't cut corners. Buy the system front to rear. You will be happy.

20210530_182246.jpg


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IMG_24951.jpg
 
@Oldmanmopar what exactly do you disagree about in my post?

or are you just going back through my posts and negging me in some type of retribution for disagreeing with your point of view in another topic?
 
junkyardhero said:
@Oldmanmopar what exactly do you disagree about in my post?

or are you just going back through my posts and negging me in some type of retribution for disagreeing with your point of view in another topic?
Click to expand...



LOL. That’s what he does to me. He will go find 20 of my posts and X them.

Third grade loser. I laugh it off and consider the source.
 
I have to respectfully disagree that shorties offer nothing over manifolds. They certainly do and it's been seen in dyno testing. Consider that manifolds don't have dividers between the cylinders. Even the coveted early 340 passenger side is nowhere near as efficient as a shorty header. Just look at the difference. Then, you have to consider the driver's side, which has basically zero dividers. Yes, shorties offer complete isolation of each exhaust port all the way the length of the tubes to the collectors. Plenty enough room for complete scavenging and zero contamination of pulled in exhaust from another cylinder. Not to mention they slam out flow manifolds. I remember Jim Laroy @IQ52 doing some testing with manifolds and he found that HP manifolds basically offer nothing over stock manifolds. I don't know if he ever did testing with shorty headers or not, but many others have and they always added to. They may not deliver the torque long tubes do, but I believe that is also somewhat combo dependent.
 
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RustyRatRod said:
I have to respectfully disagree that shorties offer nothing over manifolds. They certainly do and it's been seen in dyno testing. Consider that manifolds don't have dividers between the cylinders. Even the coveted early 340 passenger side is nowhere near as efficient as a shorty header. Just look at the difference. Then, you have to consider the driver's side, which has basically zero dividers. Yes, shorties offer complete isolation of each exhaust port all the way the length of the tubes to the collectors. Plenty enough room for complete scavenging and zero contamination of pulled in exhaust from another cylinder. Not to mention they slam out flow manifolds. I remember Jim Laroy @IQ52 doing some testing with manifolds and he found that HP manifolds basically offer nothing over stock manifolds. I don't know if he ever did testing with shorty headers or not, but many others have and they always added to. They may not deliver the torque long tubes do, but I believe that is also somewhat combo dependent.
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I certainly agree on several points here (flow, scavenging for example) and the numbers show that the flow starts to pick up in the upper RPM range against the manifolds.

I'd love to see a test with more compression and a more aggressive cam. I'd hazard a guess that it doesn't look nearly as neck and neck.
 
junkyardhero said:
I certainly agree on several points here (flow, scavenging for example) and the numbers show that the flow starts to pick up in the upper RPM range against the manifolds.

I'd love to see a test with more compression and a more aggressive cam. I'd hazard a guess that it doesn't look nearly as neck and neck.
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I would thing that if "someone" offered a big tube shorty that you'd see that power and torque gap between shorties and full length headers get even more narrow. If you notice, all the shorties offered are small tube. If someone made say a 1 7/8 for a small block and a 2" for the big block, IMO it might level the playing field a little. Also most shorties only have a 2.5" collector. Plus, there's room to do it! You normally only run into header clearance issues with bigger tubes with things "down under" the engine bay, like torsion bars, center links, tie rod ends, pitman and idler arms. Shorties eliminate all of those issues.
 
RustyRatRod said:
I would thing that if "someone" offered a big tube shorty that you'd see that power and torque gap between shorties and full length headers get even more narrow. If you notice, all the shorties offered are small tube. If someone made say a 1 7/8 for a small block and a 2" for the big block, IMO it might level the playing field a little. Also most shorties only have a 2.5" collector. Plus, there's room to do it! You normally only run into header clearance issues with bigger tubes with things "down under" the engine bay, like torsion bars, center links, tie rod ends, pitman and idler arms. Shorties eliminate all of those issues.
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the set that I made stayed 1 5/8 because the 1 7/8 was just a little too tight for my liking in the early narrow body (and my limited fab skillz), and kept the "collector" at 2.5 because of the 4spd things and stuffs. but I also wanted something that was easily serviceable.

it would be quite interesting to see a bigger tube shorty, especially on a mill that was spec'd out for upper RPM operation
 
junkyardhero said:
the set that I made stayed 1 5/8 because the 1 7/8 was just a little too tight for my liking in the early narrow body (and my limited fab skillz), and kept the "collector" at 2.5 because of the 4spd things and stuffs. but I also wanted something that was easily serviceable.

it would be quite interesting to see a bigger tube shorty, especially on a mill that was spec'd out for upper RPM operation
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Yeah, I was thinking about 1.875 shorties. In my mind, even with a 3 inch collector I can’t figure out how you’d get those bigger pipes all in one place for the collector.

Maybe on the passenger side but with the starter and steering box, plus the torsion bar down there it would be a tight ****. Tighter than if you just had 1.875 tubes that went under the chassis.
 
too bad someone hasn't come up with a good tri-y set up for small blocks in some of the tight engine bays we work on. you would think that that would be easier to get performance and fit!
 
junkyardhero said:
the set that I made stayed 1 5/8 because the 1 7/8 was just a little too tight for my liking in the early narrow body (and my limited fab skillz), and kept the "collector" at 2.5 because of the 4spd things and stuffs. but I also wanted something that was easily serviceable.

it would be quite interesting to see a bigger tube shorty, especially on a mill that was spec'd out for upper RPM operation
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Trust me. If you made headers AT ALL, you ain't the one with limited fab skills. I'd be embarrassed to see what my headers ended up lookin like. lol
 
golden boy said:
too bad someone hasn't come up with a good tri-y set up for small blocks in some of the tight engine bays we work on. you would think that that would be easier to get performance and fit!
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Shumacher has them on their web site. Whether that means they are available is anybody's guess. But IMO, those don't really classify as "shorty headers". Including the collector portion, they are fairly long.
 
1olddmf said:
you guys with "big tube is better" are 100% wrong!
unless its race ONLY,
dyno testing (chassis and engine) have proven low rpm power loss (hp and torque) with big tubes,
I'm talking under 400 cu in motors,
most of you drive at under 5000rpm, so large tube is useless.
the decrease in velocity with large primary tube, decreases scavenging,
and efficiency ( unless you are at high rpm,)
plus... when you add exhaust/mufflers, you compound the issue,
limiting the free flow of exhaust .
just my 2 cents,
Click to expand...

Post up YOUR dyno testing.

And while your at it, define “big tube” header.
 
1olddmf said:
you guys with "big tube is better" are 100% wrong!
unless its race ONLY,
dyno testing (chassis and engine) have proven low rpm power loss (hp and torque) with big tubes,
I'm talking under 400 cu in motors,
most of you drive at under 5000rpm, so large tube is useless.
the decrease in velocity with large primary tube, decreases scavenging,
and efficiency ( unless you are at high rpm,)
plus... when you add exhaust/mufflers, you compound the issue,
limiting the free flow of exhaust .
just my 2 cents,
Click to expand...

Calling something useless when you state there is an actual use is kind of disingenuous.

And who shifts under 5k when they're looking for the power?
 
1olddmf said:
I was a designer /fabricator for hooker headers, and did many ,many hrs of dyno time on my own chassis dyno,
I'm just providing the truth, not trying to convince anyone, you can spend your $$ as foolishly as you choose.
on a under 400 cu in motor for STREET USE, 1 5/8 IS OPTIMUM.
1 3/4 you loose some low end torque. and 1 7/8 a noticeable loss in low end torque

my cars seldom are driven "like I stole them"
I value the cars, and the cost involved. so I don't abuse them .
yes, they will rev well past 5000 rpm, but why?
I'm not in a contest.
Click to expand...

In a couple of months I’ll post up some testing using 5204 and 5303 Hookers.

Since 1980 I’ve been doing it wrong.
 
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