i have the motor almost complete, with shorty headers, they end equal length with the bottom of the control arm.

my question is, is it ok to run the motor without the exhaust hooked up to it for a little while, until i get some new bolts and gaskets for them.

 

I wouldnt do it with the shorties, the heat from the exhaust might do some damage plus you might shoot some small flames out of them and that wouldnt be good either under the hood.

 

It shouldn't hurt the engine, but it may hurt your relations with the neighbors, not to mention the first local authority figure you happen to pass by......Better to bolt it up and have it a little noisy.

 

Its not going to hurt anything.

 

nono i dont have plan on leaving my hard, and the header outlets are pointing toward the ground.

i just want to start it up to make sure the engine fires up alright, i wont be able to put on the exhaust til next week, and i just wanted to fire it up see how it sounds.

 

As for the engine part of it, no it wont hurt the engine. But as far as your ears go, youd better get a set of earplugs it will be pretty loud.

If you plan on runnin without anything on the heads i wouldnt reccomend it is your going to burn or blacken everything under the hood.

 

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i stated above headers will be bolted to the motor, just the exhaust wont be bolted to the headers...

 

people run open headers all the tims but most of the time they are longtubes. It wont hurt the engine to do it but like I said Id be more worried about the heat coming out of them being so close to your firewall. I would also be afraid of stuff catching on fire from the flames that will more than likely be coming out of the headers.

 

yeah yer right, i plan on changing exhaust actually, and i wanted to run the motor in between changes to see if there are any ticks or knocks any leaks.

 

IMO, if you haven't started the engine up before, like if it's new or just rebuilt, I'd bolt the exhuast up and deal with the leak. This way here if the engine has a funny noise, you can hear it over the exhuast. Other than that. No damage can be done.