rnoftz

We (my son and I) just finished installing Hooker 2055s, a Catco cat and a Flowmaster cat back on my 1991 Camaro RS (305 TBI with Air Conditioning).

Okay, before anybody starts up about investing good money (and parts) on a 305, this is a restoration of opportunity. As the Camaro has developed problems, I've addressed them by installing my target parts, always making certain it would be compatible with the 350 donor (also TBI) that's destined to take the 305's place.

Anyone who has done this job, will tell you it can be a pain (literally). Even more so when you're doing it on the garage floor/driveway like we did. Here are some of the lessons we learned (that may be application specific). Hopefully it will save someone else the trouble we had. Also, let me apologize now for not abbreviating. It makes for a longer post, but makes it easier to search on.

1. The Catco 3 inch converter and Flowmaster cat back system rocks! They bolted right up (SWEET!). The only exception being, that I did have to get someone to weld up the AIR tube from the cat. It sounds great (IMHO)! It's not overbearing at idle or when maintaining speed (but has just enough rumble to let the guy next to you know you're there). That said, it growls with power when accelerating. If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't have known to select this combination.
2. Have the oxygen sensor bung welded on the front side of the driver's side header. Okay, this was a stupid mistake. I erroneously requested that it be welded in the back, and we had to reroute the wiring a little bit to get it connected.

3. You'll need 90 degree spark plug boots for all plugs. We put it all together and started it up with the couple of OE 180 degree boots and they sat right on top of the header tubes. The heat is bound to melt down the boots/wires (note I order new wires below). Aside from that, the driver's side is almost no trouble at all.

4. The passenger side manifold comes out from the bottom and the header goes in from the botton. You will not have to disconnect/move any of the air conditioning system. You will have to remove the starter, the passenger side AIR plumbing, the fan switch (after draining the coolant - I got a call at work one day that my son removed 'a bolt' while pulling the manifold and all of the coolant leaked out), the oil dipstick, pull the bolt on the passenger side motor mount and jack up the engine on the passenger side (about 2 inches).

5. Tighten the spark plugs as soon as the headers are in position. Also, install the fan switch and dipstick tube before bolting the headers to the head. This will save you a lot of headaches. We tightened down the header before the plugs. In a couple cases, it took a good deal of contortion to get the plugs in and then we couldn't get the spark plug socket on the plug. As a solution, we pulled the rubber out of my backup spark plug socket, cut a 1/2" off of the top and used a wrench to tighten the plug (the spark plug tip stuck out of the socket's ratchet hole).

6. Start with the rear most bolt when attaching the passenger side header. It may help to 'swivel' the header while tightening this bolt, because the clearance was very tight. We had to wrench it from the bottom, and even then there was barely enough room to swing the wrench, flip it, swing it and repeat. Utimately, we ended up grinding down around the ouside of a Taiwanese socket to make the wall thin enough to fit between the bolt and the #8 pipe (it makes we wonder about Hooker's manufacturing tolerances).

7. Install the starter after the headers and before the Y pipe. It'll be in your way while you figure out the best method for tightening the passenger side header bolts.

8. Enjoy! I haven't driven it much (per the spark plug thing), but it's a great sound and the butt dyno was most impressed (even for a 305 - snobs!).

z28redline

iTrader: (1)

Good read. Doing the same sort of thing on my 88 Tbi right now except I went with the hooker cat back. Haven't got the headers installed yet because I'm waiting for them to get coated but when I do I'll post my results.

z28redline

Crusin' 1980's

I also have an 88 TBI that i plan on doing the headers (hooker 2055) this year...let me know how it turns out...i also plan on having the cam swapped out...It might be easier with the engine apart to do both at the same time...

sparklemint

I'm wondering, because I'm pretty inexperienced when it comes to tooling around with stuff like this.. When you jack up the engine, is it simply a matter of jacking it up a couple inches? What happens to everything that's attached in the bay and the transmission and such when you do that?

rnoftz

I only needed to jack the passenger side up a couple of inches. There was no need to pull the bolt connecting the two halves of the driver's side mount.

Also, the engine mounts are rubber to allow for a little bit of engine twist. When you accelerate, the engine tries to twist instead of overcoming the resistance of the stationary car. So, there's enough flex in the rest of the passenger side connections (starter wiring, ground strap, heater hoses, A/C lines, etc.) to allow for some twist. The exhaust and AIR plumbing could cause some resistance, but by the time we got to jacking the engine up, in order to get the new header in place, we'd already pulled the passenger side exhaust manifold (which included the AIR plumbing).

After we pulled the connecting bolt out of the motor mount, we put a a block of wood along the passenger side of the oil pan (so that it laid along the full length of the oil pan bottom edge), placed the jack under the block and jacked it slowly. we would jack a little, test for clearance, jack a little more, until we got just enough clearance to get the header between the block and the body.

Also, I think I underplayed the whole exhaust manifold removal process (my son did most of it). We destroyed both manifolds when we pulled them by cutting off the AIR tubes. We didn't need to save them, because we have a set on a donor engine if I need them for reassembly. If you want to save yours, you may need to jack the passenger side up earlier in the process, so that you can drop the manifold past the engine block.

I hope this helps you achieve a slightly less trouble free installation.

violentgod1

i have a 92 tbi and got the hooker super competition exhaust with no headers yet but it sounds good already. Headers will be coming.