Talk me into Fenderwell Headers

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Cons the exhaust is hard to make it look nice.
front tire - you have to run pizza Cutters tire
Pros everything is easer to work on
the engine and engine comparment runs cooler
looks old school
 

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RzeroB said:
I had a '69 Dart strip/street car with a 440/727 combo in it. The car was barely street legal and was mostly used on the strip. The fenderwells were already cut out so I put a set of Hooker 2" fenderwell headers on it. Here is what I thought about them:

Likes:
1. Ease of engine/trans maintenance - spark plugs, starter, trans shifter and kick-down linkage etc all easily accessible.
2. Ease of installation.
3. No burnt starter, plug wires or trans shifter cables.

Dislikes:
1. Like others have said, I experienced tire clearance issues too. I had to run 14's on the front. Didn't experiment with different wheel backspacing to gain more clearance (wasn't smart enough at the time to think of that!).
2. With the smaller 14" front wheels the header collector flange would sometimes catch on the back edge of the trailer/ramps when loading/unloading the car on to/off of it
3. Brake lines coming off of the master cylinder were real close to the header. Had to do some creative bending and rerouting of the brake lines. Have seen where others have installed different master cylinders with the outlet ports on the right (vs stock left) side.
4. When making a 1/4 mi pass I had a tendency to keep my left foot firmly planted on the floorboard to the left side of the brake pedal. I raced in sneakers and there was no carpeting so by the end of the pass I would get a "hot foot"!

Ma Mopar didn't do anybody any favors with all of the junk (torsion bar, steering column, starter, clutch cross shaft, etc) on the left side. Would have been a whole lot easier if they had put the starter on the right side, but that's a fantasy. I do like the idea of the partial under chassis/fenderwell header (a couple of tubes inside and a couple of tubes outside the frame rail) that Brad4406 and mischiefdart mentioned. I have only seen them with big primaries on full blown race cars and have not seen them for an A-body but I do like the idea of them. Might be worth investigating as it give you the best of both worlds. Which ever way you go I also like the idea of having your headers ceramic coated to reduce radiated heat - won't have to worry about overheated tires, brake lines or "hot foot"!
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Above is probably the best none opinionated advice.

There have been many other comments that Seam fitting as well.

If your putting a built BB in the car, your probably not going to tell the difference between the two headers when your driving it. If you need to shave every tenth of a second possible, then maybe.

How much money are you really going to save? You can't just put un coated fender wells in. They will look like crap soon enough. You would have to get them powder coated. You sound like you are putting some good thought and hard earned money into this build. Don't think of the difference in price between the two choices of headers. If your not tubbing the car and putting just as much money in the rear end set up as you are the engine, you arnt going to hook up anyways...trust me, my 70 duster 440 4spd doesn't. But I don't like the drag look

My personal opinion is fender wells look cheap and ugly and take away resale value from the car as well. I could care less about ease of changing spark plugs. And always buy a new starter ( preferably mini starter) when doing an engine. Just cause!
 
roughidle said:
I've got mixed feelings about going with fenderwell headers. I'd like to hear from you all's about why I should go with them. My reservations lie with cutting the inner fenders and taking away from the front end stiffness, structure, etc. This car is to be street/strip driven with 75% street time. How do I handle running the exhaust under the car and out back since I'm using frame ties? Wouldn't this cause the pipes to be run lower to the ground than normal?
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I don't dislike you enough to talk you into running fenderwell headers. If you feel you must run them comprimise with proparts headers.
 
I got them. I like them. Been running them on my 66 Dart since 1966 both strip and street. Nothing bad to say from me.
 
roughidle said:
I heard somewhere along the lines in someone else's thread that they were only good to like 450-500 hp. Plus I was hoping to get somewhere near 2 to 2-1/8" primaries...
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heard as in online or actually seen the dyno numbers?
 
I was going to make my own FW's but was going to make a set of Tri-Wy's (4-2-1) and that way along the back inner fenderwell It would reduce the used up area to just 2- 2 1/2dia pipes. It was all about getting the exhaust out and rid of the stock manifolds. HP and dyno numbers are irrelevent unless you run a heads-up no break-out class
 
Does anyone have supporting claims saying the tri-y's will produce? I'm completely open to hearing it. I've seen many many people on here and other forums that are selling off their tri-y's for tti's...
 
The Schumacher under chassis tri y's are not a great design. They work better than manifolds and are easier to install and service the car. Drawbacks are that the tubes are not close to equal lenght and not tuned very well. Good for an average street engine but not a high horsepower build
 
Without a doubt stay away from the schumachers for what you want. The TTI's are nice and all but they capture everything and create heat issues. They also don't flow as well as a fenderwell header because they have such tight bends off the flange. The only downfall about the full fenderwell header is that you can only run a 24-25"tall tire up front, if you want to turn all the way with no rubbing.
 
I'll try to talk you into fenderwells......

"Fenderwell Headers Are Cool!"

How's that??

:D
 
hemidenny said:
the cons always outweight the pros from my prospective...

Cons....
A) restricted tire space
b) almost impossible to get anywhere close to equal length tubes for max performance
c) some tubes end up being almost 48" long....way too long for optimum.
D) header heat and interference with master cylinder and brake lines ... Major pia
e) ground clearance is a concern with the tubes having to fit under the frame-rail to reach the collector
f) major surgery required to both of the fenderwell aprons

pros....
A) starter and clutch linkage is easy to get at.

Tti's under chassis headers are no big deal to drop in....just slide out the torsion bars for easy-peasy installation.
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x2
 
I would not use them on an A body Mopar. They look cool and work good on gasser style hot rods with straight axle front ends and all that. Don't like them because it's one of those mods where it's a big deal to go back if you don't like it. Back it the 70s and 80s when I first got into cars it was popular to have alot of race car hardware on a street machine. Nowadays I think it's way more impressive to build a car that's mild looking that runs fast, and fenderwell headers are anything but mild looking. I have Schumacher tri-y headers on my 440 and I know for sure they're too small and will cost power but they're very easy to deal with and I want to see how well they work before going to big headers and the big headaches that come with them. I'm probly going to fab my own full headers at some point and they will be under chassis when do it. Good luck with the car whatever you do with it and don't forget it's your car and your decision what to do with it.
 
The only downfall about the full fenderwell header is that you can only run a 24-25"tall tire up front, if you want to turn all the way with no rubbing.[/QUOTE]

I have a set that run one tube under chassis and have way more tire clearance. tubular parts automotive made them not sure if they are still in business.
 
roughidle said:
My reason is I don't want to pack 8" of **** into a 4" hole. I want the ability to work on my car with headers in place if possible...that's why I'm trying to stray from the tti's...
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You only need the 6 ft cable.Not trying squable about 2 ft.
 
I didn't read the post very careful.
Some people I know run a 8 ft cable to get around the problem of kinking the shifter cable with the 4 ft cable.

I'll post about Schumacher headers later today.
There's not many cars that need much more than these.
 
The last cable I ran on a '87 Dakota I ran pro street in the early 2000's I was either snapping the cables or they were getting burnt through by the headers...I wanted to try and aleviate this by getting the headers out of the way... If I adjusted the path so that the cable wasn't kinking and snapping, it was getting too close to the headers and melting the jacket....
 
mischiefdart said:
The primaries on my tubular parts automotive fenderwells are 34" x 2" according to the manufacturer's literature. Mine have the street collectors as they were also available without the flange.
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Have you put them on the car yet?
Where did you find them?
 
I'm a believer in the right part for the build you are building now, not what you think your car will become.

Hence my statement about Schumachers.

Here's my experience and progression with my Schumacher's.

This is my Parts car a 1974 Dart Sport.
Bought at a auto action as a /6 car.


Put a 440 ci engine in,out of a truck I bought at a auto action.
Notice the Schumacher headers.




.528 solid cam
Performer RPM
780 Holley carb
3000 converter
8 1/4 rear end with 3.91 sure grip
Performance manual fuel pump

Car went 12.21 et off the juice.
And with 100 hp of N2O it went 11.59 et.
Not bad for a junk yard 440 and Schmacher headers.

Next I installed a set of Stage IV heads.
The car went I believe 11.79 off the juice with the schumacher headers.


I didn't hit the juice so I next installed the roll bar.


Schumachers still working.
 
Wanting to see how far the Shumachers would go,I installed the engine out of my 67 Dart that ran 10.71 with tti 2 inch headers.





446 ci
.590 Hughs cam.
M-1 intake



Went 10.93 threw the mufflers and off the juice.
We lost .2 of a second using Schumachers.
Also note these times we all done using springs off a 71 Duster and MT ET Street tire's. 12.50 tires.
All I'm trying to say here with picture's is unless you want to use fenderwell or tti's I'm not sure you need to.

Side note the 67 Dart had SS springs and a adjustiible snubber.
 
Here's where I think the use of a larger header.
Now a 512 ci. engine is going in the Duster.
Along with TTI headers.



Valve covers didn't fit with the new distributor.



This engine in my Charger tore the pinion out of the 8 3/4 rear end.
So a Dana went in with Calvert suspension.
5/8 inch wheel studs.
Going to run the Fast efi rated to 1200 hp.
I expect this car to go deep into the 10's.








I probably hijacked this post but unless you want one of the other headers Shumacher's would most likely do for most cars.
I've spent a lot of money on buying parts that will work on what I think the car was going to be and not buying the part for right now.
Don't make my mistake.
Not everyone agree's with the Calvert's but I'll give them a try.
 
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