Hey guys
Well we got the motor to fire sounds great but about 1minute after start up the headers start glowing cherry red,look like there going to melt. 427, 990 heads, comps 306 solid, 850 carb. Timing is dead on. Carb jetted from #87 to #99 seamed to help alittle but still same thing.New carb also tried with same outcome. Were fresh out of ideas. Any ideas?

 

Pull the plugs and see if it is running rich, sounds like it and jet down a bunch. Sometimes running too rich will cause the manifolds to glow like this because the unburnt fuel is burning in the exhaust. Hope this helps!

 

I'll second what he said, too rich or too lean can cause hot headers. How much timing are you running? A friend of mine had this problem with his 383. Ended up being a wrong timing tab. It was way retarded, the timing that is.

 

I have heard that it is normal for a fresh engine to glow the headers.... everything is tight, and takes time to wear in. I managed to glow my manifolds once when I dropped the water pump belt.

 

thanks guys!
We put a dominator on it and seamed to help but still a little glow.
So I advanced the timming and glow disappeared. Figured to retarded and unburt fuel igniting in exhaust. Hopefully the cam is still ok?:hail:

 

SOunds like a possible combo of 4 things but sure sounds like a timing thing to me:

a bad timing light, incorrect balancer mark (slipped rubber) and an improper timing tab location, wrong balancer (early chevys used different lcoation for crank key in relation to timing mark, is it an OLD damper?)

 

Break in is a good time to have an old school mechanic that can set the timing by ear while you spin it up to break in the cam.