need a set of headers soon and found these on ebay, they any good

here

going on a stock to very mild built l69

 

Nope. Absolute junk. Yout stock manifolds will probably get you the same ammount of power. MAYBE 3 hp less.

Do a search if you arent convinced. :S

 

been doing a search on it, was about to come delete the post actually

looking at getting the hooker 2460 maybe, but dont wanna use lots of cash since its gonna be a very mild motor

 

They are junk for quality reasons and not performance reasons. A 1.5" primary is far better than the stock manifolds and will still yield significant power gains over 305 exhaust manifolds. If the qulaity of these headers wasn't so bad they would be perfect for stock 305's.

 

uhhuh^

 

the quality isn't that bad. i ran them for 2 years w/o any problems. the primaries are small, the collectors are small but they made a HUGE difference from the 305 manifolds i was running when i first built this 355...

 

woah guys, you're making me consider getting them now. If the quality isnt that bad.. But what about the y-pipe?

 

IIRC they have a pre-fabbed Y pipe that should do pretty decent. i didn't get the Y with mine, the muff shop made one with 2" pipes that dumped into 3".pretty restrictive, if you can get them to use 2.25" or 2.5" w/o sacrificing ground clearance that should work.


i'd get the pre-made one tho... cheaper in the long run

 

is everyone whoh is saying the quiality is bad going from experience o rhearing stories

anyone else who has ran these haeders have comments on the quality

 

I forget which one, but one of the mods uses them. He says it was a really bad decision. Maybe I could get the headers and the y and then modify the y pipe a little. But I think around here I could get some 2460's for about the same price, sooo...

(trying to get a job at a dealership. All performance parts are cost + 10%)

 

STOP!!! Back away from the flowtech button. These things are the biggest bunch of crap in the world. Seriously, I've been running these for the last two years and they drive me frikin nuts. The only reason I haven't tossed them in the garbage is lack of money for true duals. They leak no matter how much I spend on gaskets(probably enough for true duals). I wouldn't wish these are my worst enemy.

 

lol yeah flowtechs on a 383 is just wrong. As for the leaking, I dunno. I actually went to a shop once and the idiot behind the counter reccomended flowtechs. I asked:
"what about the crappy y-pipe?"
"it's actually a really good one."
"uh, ok, how about the primaries.. they're only 1.5 inch"
"that's what they all are"
"umm... nevermind. How about the flanges? Will I have a sealing problem? Dont they warp easy? "
"no, it's impossible for them to warp. Because they're bolted on. They will seal perfectly"

 

Mine never leaked.. nor did the set we put on my buddies '79 regal. as long as you follow the normal header tightening prociedure they will work fine.

for an engine pushing more than 250 HP they would not be ideal, but they would flow plenty for your average TBI or semi-stock V8. They were a huge restriction on my 355 but i'm pushing between 350 and 400 Bhp.

Going to my headman longtubes was the best decision i've made with the car.

 

Amen! For every guy who gets a good set there are 10 guys like us that have crappy sets. The flanges are warped and thin. The collectors don't seal no matter how much you spend on "dead soft" fancy gaskets. The y-pipe is a hack job and is looks like an 4 year old made it and set-it up. The one collector doesn't even line up over the pre-cut hole in the y-pipe. It is a joke how poor these things are put together. I have about 1000 miles on these headers and I won't even drive the car they leak so bad. Cheap and headers cannot be used in the same sentence. It is worth spending $150 or more for set that actually had some thought put into them.

 

my Flowtechs were $150

Stupid AutoZone

 

guess that answers that question

 

it's allright, i'm gonna cut mine up and make a set of headers for my 1991 V6 Z24

just need the flanges.. the 1.5" primaries will flow plenty for a 3.1

 

since im trying to go budget how bout these hedmans


hedmans

they have a ypipe available for them also for 99 bucks

 

Hooler 2460s are 130 and the y for them is only about a hundred bucks...

 

the 2460s are 150 on summit, where you finding them for 130? would rather have the hookers

edit: i didnt think they made a y pipe for the 2460, just the emissions legal set

 

In my research, I found a y pipe for them. Forget hte PN#. But I went to my local speed shop and asked about them, and they were able to look it up.

..And I saw em on SUmmit for 130 a while ago...

 

ok, illl look into it

 

My dad has hooker long tubes on his truck and they are very well made. I've heard the same for Hedman. For $135 from summit, I'm going to be gettin the Hedman long tubes. My local yocal exhaust shop here made me a y-pipe for $90. Its about a good a quality as my flowtechs.

Hurray for Flowtechs!!!!!!!

 

Both the Hedman and (recently available) 2460 y-pipes go to a 2.5" pipe after they come together. Okay for your typical LO3 or LG4, but not if you're modifying either one for performance.

 

would the hedmans work if i got a y pipe that goes to a 3 inch work or would the hookers with a custom pipe be better

 

Unless you have pipe fabricating equipment available to you, it's usually best to just go ahead and get the headers with a decent y-pipe. The Hooker 2055's fit that bill, as do the Hedmans for dual cats (you can add a Flowmaster "Y" where the cat would go and hook them to a single cat-back system).

Many people have gotten the y-pipe with 2.5" outlet, cut them off at the "Y", and used the Flowmaster "Y" with 3" outlet to "recover". But, that will nickel & dime you to the point where you could have gotten a decent y-pipe that would bolt on.

Closing off the A.I.R. pipes is a lot easier than fabricating or "fixing" a y-pipe.

 

this y pipe for the hedmans says its a 3 inch
hedman y pipe

would that and the hedmans posted above work

 

It's 3" where it joins the stock cat, but it's 2.5" where the two pipes "Y" together.

 

si it expands back out to 3 inches?
thats stupid

guess itll be something else then

 

damnit. I dont know what to do now. Cant afford 2055's. But I want a 3" y pipe. great.

 

what he said, money is tight so im confused

 

You are going to have to save up then. Quality headers with a well desinged 3" y-pipe is not cheap. You are limited to the Mac's, Hooker's and SLP's. Unless you go used, it is hard to do a header swap for under $400.

 

im starting to realize that, i would rather be able to do it now while i have to have the motor out of the car, just put it back in wiht them

i woul dhate doung the cam and valvetrain and then restrict it with the stock manifolds

 

just get the hedman shorties and y-pipe if you dont need emissions....the pipe can easily be changed to 3" by any decent muffler shop. The flowtech headers, mine fit fine but i would never buy them. they came on the car and im looking for a replacement now. The primaries are just TOO small adn badly designed overall

 

The flowtechs arent bad but they are far from the best you can buy. If these are what you can affored go for it, the FT Y pipe is $145, the headers are $80 new if you order the pre 86 set, the 86+ have air tubes and run $140 just for the bungs.
I dont see the 1.5 pri tubes holding back power on a 305 or mild 350, the collectors are the power robbers but if you cut up a stock Y pipe the flowtech one is way better. I'd suggest 2055's over the FT but resorted to these for fitment issues. I see no quality issues with my set of course a good set of flange gaskets like dead soft aluminum will keep warped headers from leaking.

 

So, say, for my mild 305, what if I got a flowtech set and modded the y-pipe? I could change it to merge them together in a y instead of a t, and then, yeah. THe rest of my exhaust, including the cutout, is only 2.5", and me likes me low-end power.

 

FWIW, I bought a set of Flowtechs years ago that were made before Holley bought the company. The quality on the headers was fine, and they never leaked. The Y pipe (not much of a Y if you ask me, more like a T and not much better than stock) was made after Holley took over, and its flanges didn't match the ones on the headers.

 

Well..great. Confused now. If I can get 'em to seal, then they should be ok, I think. Hey, that's what the warranty is for. I guess it depends on the price difference. I called MOPAC and asked them about 2460s and they said $300 CDN for the headers and y pipe.

 

For a stock or mild 305, they'd be fine. They're cheap, and if your welds are ugly like some people's are, you can clean them up with a die grinder. Get a set of Stage 8 or other locking header bolts and they shouldn't warp.

I don't know if it's worth the trouble modifying the Y pipe, it might be better just to have one made.

If the timing was a little better, you could have mine when they come off the car in a while.

By the way, they probably fit the car the easiest too, I just dropped both of them right in from the top, but then again I have no A/C.

 

Heh I dont have ac either. I set out specifically to buy a thirdgen without ac.

And my timing can be put on hold. I'm going to try to buy a new carb first, because mine is absolute JUNK. Then after that the headers, so who knows, maybe when yours come off we can work something out...

 

Sure, as long as you don't hold your breath. I've been planning to redo the exhaust for quite some time now, but it keeps getting put on hold by little things like wiped-out camshafts. :P

 

Stage 8 locking tabs won't work with the flowtechs. The primaries are too close to the flange holes for proper clearnace. You would have to go with breslins. Also, don;t forget that you cannot use the gaskets that come with these headers. You will burn them out in 5 minutes (no exaderation). I was warned about this when I bought mine and I shrugged it off. Soon after I started the car I had to go and buy nice fancy header gaskets. That is an additional cost that you won't have to do with the 2055's. Custom fabbed y-pipes are nice but they come at a cost. I hope you can get a good deal from a shop that can do mandrel bends. I still think you are better off trying to save a few more bucks for a set that doesn't need much work.

 

Really? I'm glad you said something, now I can go take them off. Just think, I've had them on for all this time and now I find out they don't work.

 

Is the sarcasm that necessary? I have had these bolts and headers for over 3 years now so I am not making this up. Maybe you have a different set of fixtured flowtechs from when businesses switched hands.

Did you grind down the tabs? I could only manage to get a few of the tabs on. I left them off after repeated attempts. The head of the stage 8's were literally touching the primaries on my set.

 

Case in point

 

Perhaps there is something to the difference between your experience and Shifty's.

 

You're right, sarcasm isn't necessary. I apologize.

The clearance between the head and the tube on mine is similar to yours, and yet I was able to fit the locking tabs over the heads in all but 3 cases, where nothing more than a little filing was necessary.

There does seem to have been a decline in quality since the acquisition by Holley. My original supplied gaskets didn't burn out, and that was back before I had the Stage 8's on and I was having trouble with the header bolts backing out. I replaced them with a cheap set from Mr Gasket (P/N 150 or something like that I believe), and they continued to seal just fine.

 

This is what I should have done. I couldn't justify grinding on my new $40 header bolts though. I ended up losing the tabs when my tools were stolen so there is no chance of me trying now I was just so dissheartend when I installed these headers that I didn't want to throw more money at them.

It sounds like you got yours right before the poo hit the fan. These headers are just a few quality steps away from being a decent header. It is sad that they couldn't make just a few slight changes. I will be removing these headers here in a few weeks and I plan on posting some of their quality issues to look out for.

 

You should be able to get new tabs for the Stage 8s if you wanted to use them down the road.

As I recall, the issue preventing me from putting those 3 tabs on was the clearance at the top of the bolt head where the tubing started to bend, not the clearance at the base where the tab actually rests.

 

This makes sense. It has been awhile but i remember that if I backed out the bolts a tad I could get a few more of the tabs on. However, I didn't like having any bolts even remotely loose and was afraid the tabs wouldn't work on a bolt that was loose. You woulnd't happen to know where i coul dbuy new tabs would you?