Exhaust Manifolds or Exhaust Headers? Go!

[trillizo_y_uno]

Both of my manifolds had leaks where gasket material had blown out.  I thought about swapping over to headers.  But as others have mentioned, I didn't want to deal with the prospect having to constantly retorque the header bolts.  Instead, I decided to keep the manifolds.  I had a machine shop resurface manifolds so they would mate up true to the heads.  No regrets.

 

[turtle5353]

My headers have been on for years with 0 issues and never have to tighten bolts.  I run nice thick copper gaskets.  They are reusable and seal well. 

 

[Hemikiller]

My headers have been on for years with 0 issues and never have to tighten bolts.  I run nice thick copper gaskets.  They are reusable and seal well. 

I have no issues either, but run the fiber composite gaskets. Everything I had with a V8 had headers, and they were used year round. The cops would pull you over for the stupidest things back then, so you learned how to keep the headers sealed up, and it came down to being meticulous with tightening the bolts, and having an exhaust system that didn't swing around in the breeze. My 73 Chevy crew cab dually taught me how to hang an exhaust system so that it didn't eat collector gaskets, as there was about 14ft of tubing to the bumper. 

My go-to for years was the MrGasket white composite gaskets with a coat of UltraCopper on each side. The Hooker gaskets were pretty good too. I once made a set for a friend's Cuda out of the previous night's pizza box....

I am very curious about this. You say that the ports now match, how recent did they make these changes?

I bought my headers in the fall of 2020, took about five months to arrive from Holley. I'm assuming the change was made when they sent Hooker production to China. To be honest, these are a much nicer header than the Mexican made units I bought about ten years ago. 

 

[Bentworker]

If you go headers consider Nord-Lock washers.  They are simple and work.  McMaster-Carr sells them.

https://www.nord-lock.com/nord-lock/products/washers/

I have Sanderson shorty headers on my car (ceramic coated) I don't have more than 300 miles on the car yet, but they are good so far.

 

[jspears]

I have the ceramic patriot headers for 2v heads. 0-60 is 5.3 with 2v heads, 213,213 cam, performer intake with 1 inch spacer, holley 600 vac secondary. Oh and factory crank, rods and crappy dished cast pistons. Headers are the best bang for the buck and the combo does not have to be wild in my opinion.

 

[1sostatic]

Very simple -- go to my youuut000b 

the red one has long headers -- the green one has original manifolds





I like both -- but feel the plumbier sound of the green sportyroof is more exciting

 

[Sheriff41]

6 hours ago, 1sostatic said:

Very simple -- go to my youuut000b 

the red one has long headers -- the green one has original manifolds

Nice comparison.  Do they both have the same mufflers?

 

[Hemikiller]

Those sound like two completely different mufflers. Red car sounds like some sort of glass pack style muffler, green car is a Flowmaster chambered type. 

 

[1sostatic]

Those sound like two completely different mufflers. Red car sounds like some sort of glass pack style muffler, green car is a Flowmaster chambered type. 

You may be right -- but I'm no good identifying exhaust parts