Which long tube header that is not TTI suck the least?

[1Fast340]

Doug’s d453 on my 70 duster 340 4speed was a nightmare. $1000 set of headers everyone chirps are the best and well shoot it to you straight here they are not the best!!!! Zbar won’t move unless you bend or totally customize it to fit between header and the starter. Mini starter still no clearance. Passenger side had to beat the crap out of a beautiful ceramic coated header to clear torsion bar. Honestly I would bought a $300 set of hookers and beat the crap outa them to fit vs the $1000 Doug’s. Tricky here one guy says they fit next guy says they don’t so frustrating finding solid info. 10 guys now gonna say there Doug’s fit great .... lol my Doug’s fit too after a nightmare. Def not plug and play and god forbid your starter goes have fun getting starter out with Doug’s bolted up. Just my experience on my 70 duster. Tti and Doug’s never again

So you managed to find all those threads saying that dougs headers are the best thing since sliced bread without also finding almost as many threads telling you that there will be som customization to make them work with a 4 speed?
i do agree that dougs should put the information in their installation instructions.

So you are complaining that your starter actualy fits but is hard to change?

Did you try moving the engine around some in the enginemounts? are your mounts fresh? There is room for movement in the stock mounts and even shims available to correct things alitle when needed,and as has been pointed out many times in this forum,these cars are all over the map regarding tolerances and sometimes they stack up on the bad side other times for the worse,did you actualy try that before starting to beat on them and after that,did you try to call Dougs and see if they might send out a replacement header if it was a problem in manufacturing that happens from time to time before beating on them?

 

[dukeboy440]

The Schumacher headers are pricier than the D453's

When I got mine in spring of 2017, i paid 500 shipped for my Schumachers, dougs were almost 700 at the time. But you're quoting my post from over a year ago, prices change but both options are still less than 1000 as the original post was asking

 

[Shadowfirexz]

So you managed to find all those threads saying that dougs headers are the best thing since sliced bread without also finding almost as many threads telling you that there will be som customization to make them work with a 4 speed?
i do agree that dougs should put the information in their installation instructions.

So you are complaining that your starter actualy fits but is hard to change?

Did you try moving the engine around some in the enginemounts? are your mounts fresh? There is room for movement in the stock mounts and even shims available to correct things alitle when needed,and as has been pointed out many times in this forum,these cars are all over the map regarding tolerances and sometimes they stack up on the bad side other times for the worse,did you actualy try that before starting to beat on them and after that,did you try to call Dougs and see if they might send out a replacement header if it was a problem in manufacturing that happens from time to time before beating on them?

I tried everything imaginable before beating on my $1000 headers of course. Mounts are good, no amount of shimming on earth could help the passenger side clear the torsion bar or driver side from clearing the zbar. Ya you said it biggest piss off was the Doug’s instructions meantioned nothing about the z bar conflict with the header And the passenger side header conflict with the torsion bar. I’m complaining about everything to do with Doug’s. Like I said for the price I was shocked how bad they worked overall. Sure do sound good but not fun/easy or worth it to me

 

[1Fast340]

I tried everything imaginable before beating on my $1000 headers of course. Mounts are good, no amount of shimming on earth could help the passenger side clear the torsion bar or driver side from clearing the zbar. Ya you said it biggest piss off was the Doug’s instructions meantioned nothing about the z bar conflict with the header And the passenger side header conflict with the torsion bar. I’m complaining about everything to do with Doug’s. Like I said for the price I was shocked how bad they worked overall. Sure do sound good but not fun/easy or worth it to me

For what its worth you can create alot of space by not only moving the engine around alitle but also by shimming the driverside mount up to move the passanger side header away from the torsonbar,these cars are terrible in tollerances and sometimes everything just falls into place once you take out all the stock screwups,sometimes its not possible,but you never contacted Dougs to see if they could help you incase you just got a bad passangerside header,crap like that happens in manufacturing and some but sadly fram from all manufactures will do the right thing.

Sad that you never saw the isue with the Z-bar ahead of time im sure i have seen it mentioned alot of times over the years, i wonder if its the result of Dougs getting their hands on some oddball car when making the first headers and then nobody told them about the problem? Dougs is one of those companys that seemed like they did care about making things work...

Headers often are a pain,but thats what happens when you try to fit 4 pipes in a space only designed for one in the first place..

 

[Shadowfirexz]

For what its worth you can create alot of space by not only moving the engine around alitle but also by shimming the driverside mount up to move the passanger side header away from the torsonbar,these cars are terrible in tollerances and sometimes everything just falls into place once you take out all the stock screwups,sometimes its not possible,but you never contacted Dougs to see if they could help you incase you just got a bad passangerside header,crap like that happens in manufacturing and some but sadly fram from all manufactures will do the right thing.

Sad that you never saw the isue with the Z-bar ahead of time im sure i have seen it mentioned alot of times over the years, i wonder if its the result of Dougs getting their hands on some oddball car when making the first headers and then nobody told them about the problem? Dougs is one of those companys that seemed like they did care about making things work...

Headers often are a pain,but thats what happens when you try to fit 4 pipes in a space only designed for one in the first place..

I tried shifting engine around. Forgot to mention the driver side header was also rubbing the steering column “manual box car”. Shift engine to far to passenger side would mess with torsion bar clearance to far to drivers would rub on steering column. Bad set of headers perhaps. Waited 4 months for them outa the states. Didn’t wanna even say the word Doug’s let alone call them and fight over it and returning. They are bolted in just not what I expected. Head of tti needing zbar mods had I known Doug’s were the same on 4speeds I wouldn’t have ever bought them. Last part I wanna butcher is my zbar . Oh well live and learn

 

[ir3333]

Your cam has a large effect on how much power headers might add.
What are your cam specs and build details?

 

[MopaR&D]

One option is Hedman Tight Tubes shorty headers, put them on my Duster after I discovered a huge crack in the manifolds I was going to use. The headers themselves fit great and are easy to install but fabbing exhaust to come off the headers is the tough part; the outlets point straight down and are right at the oil pan rail so not much room to go down. I ended up buying one of those exhaust pipe "donuts" and a pair of offset header collectors from Sanderson and made my own pipes that snake down from the headers, back up over the steering linkage then back down again to go to the exhaust system.

In your case I think it would be worth the trouble, it's still probably cheaper to find an exhaust expert to fab those down pipes than to pay for expensive headers PLUS overseas shipping.

 

[pishta]

for $500, just get a greneric header weld up kit and make them with the pieces. Get a chop saw and just start piecing them together with cuts. Tack weld the pieces together so you can break them apart easily and just build one pipe at a time. Take the finished pipe to a exhaust shop or some welding shop and have them finish weld them. you can separate the flange at the outboard pipes. Paying $800 for 8 bent pipes is not in my budget.

 

[72bluNblu]

Doug’s d453 on my 70 duster 340 4speed was a nightmare. $1000 set of headers everyone chirps are the best and well shoot it to you straight here they are not the best!!!! Zbar won’t move unless you bend or totally customize it to fit between header and the starter. Mini starter still no clearance. Passenger side had to beat the crap out of a beautiful ceramic coated header to clear torsion bar. Honestly I would bought a $300 set of hookers and beat the crap outa them to fit vs the $1000 Doug’s. Tricky here one guy says they fit next guy says they don’t so frustrating finding solid info. 10 guys now gonna say there Doug’s fit great .... lol my Doug’s fit too after a nightmare. Def not plug and play and god forbid your starter goes have fun getting starter out with Doug’s bolted up. Just my experience on my 70 duster. Tti and Doug’s never again

I tried everything imaginable before beating on my $1000 headers of course. Mounts are good, no amount of shimming on earth could help the passenger side clear the torsion bar or driver side from clearing the zbar. Ya you said it biggest piss off was the Doug’s instructions meantioned nothing about the z bar conflict with the header And the passenger side header conflict with the torsion bar. I’m complaining about everything to do with Doug’s. Like I said for the price I was shocked how bad they worked overall. Sure do sound good but not fun/easy or worth it to me

Doug's require the same exact modification to the Z-bar as the TTI's require. It's posted all over the place, I think I've personally posted the instructions for modifying the Z bar for the Doug's at least half a dozen times or more just on this forum. What's one more?

As for the rest of it, long tube headers on these cars are not a slam dunk. Just read some threads here, there are plenty of threads about TTI's not fitting and needing to be dented and dimpled. There are threads about Doug's needing to be dented/dimpled to fit. And there are threads about TTIs and Doug's both dropping right in with no issues, dents or dimples, believe it or not (lucky bastards!). The simple fact is that these cars are not all identical, and with the tolerances needed for a dent free install on any of the headers for these cars there are bound to be cars that need some dents- regardless of how nice the Doug's and TTI headers are.

I love the Doug's on the 340 in my Duster with a 4 speed, and yes, I modified the Z-bar. I did have to add a couple of small dimples to clear the torsion bars, but I run 1.12" torsion bars so that wasn't unexpected. I've seen TTI's too, and honestly I wasn't nearly as impressed with their build quality as I was with the Doug's, but maybe I got a "Monday morning" set of TTI's.

 

[1Fast340]

I tried shifting engine around. Forgot to mention the driver side header was also rubbing the steering column “manual box car”. Shift engine to far to passenger side would mess with torsion bar clearance to far to drivers would rub on steering column. Bad set of headers perhaps. Waited 4 months for them outa the states. Didn’t wanna even say the word Doug’s let alone call them and fight over it and returning. They are bolted in just not what I expected. Head of tti needing zbar mods had I known Doug’s were the same on 4speeds I wouldn’t have ever bought them. Last part I wanna butcher is my zbar . Oh well live and learn

Ok but did you try actualy tilting the engine alitle? By lifting the driverside slightly using shims (this works with the older style mounts,not with the later style there are other solutions for those) you could have gained alitle clearance by the steering column at the same time as you would have gained clearance down by the the passanger side torsionbar,effectivly helping you with two of your isues,this could also create other isues but sometimes it works..May not have been the end all solution but could have helped,its about seeing things threedimensionaly.
I guess things are what they are now but lets hope this can help someone else that runs into the same problems.

Said it before,but i worked with exhaust for along time and after noticing some things i started taking notes of things that didnt seem right with primarily older musclecars and i wish i would have kept that notebook,with all those measurements.

 

[QuickDart360]

I have used dynomax headers which are like hookers but I got ceramic. Have had them for 9 years and no issues. Just use aluminum gaskets from percys or equivalent. All's good!