I can't say whether Rick's headers will improve the 289's performance by
themselves, and I'll never know, mainly because the stock Ford heads are
sitting in a box next to the stock Ford exhaust manifolds and the stock
2-barrel Ford intake manifold. They'll go with the car if I ever sell it. In
their places are Edelbrock E-Street heads and a performer manifold. The
heads have much improved intake and exhaust valves and runners, and they
cost about what a conversion to unleaded fuel exhaust valves / valve job
would have cost... less than a grand. I've read the intake manifold isn't
any better than the F-4B manifold that came with the LAT option, but I'm
comfortable it flows better than the stock Ford cast-iron 4-barrel manifold,
and it's a hellova lot lighter. Add to that a mild Edelbrock cam and I
expect it'll put some fire under this old man's bottom. Maybe not "all it
could be", but better than it was.
I suspect it'd be hard to say whether a set of headers would improve the
car's performance because I suspect that most guys, like me, wouldn't add
them alone.
What I may do is weigh the car. It'd be interesting to know what the weight
distribution is with my LAT hood and all that cast iron gone.
BTW, a 340 with a six-pack was a great little engine in its day, as good or
better than anything GM had to offer in their "stock" 327s. The 360 wasn't
too bad either.
Tom
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Thomas Witt <atwittsend@verizon.net> wrote:
> A bit late to reading this but I found an interesting article over on the
> Mopar side of my life. They took a mildly prepared 360 and tried every
> manifold/header possible that would fit the heads. The bottom line was that
> $800 TTI headers added 10 HP over lowly 318 stock manifolds with 24" of open
> pipe ( to 5,100 RPM test ). The lauded "340" manifolds (much like HiPo 289
> manifolds) added only 4 HP. So, at least for the SB Mopar headers seem like
> a lot of cost for very little gain.
>
> The SB Fords are said to have a bad exhaust port design (size). So, I'm not
> sure whether headers would help, or become even less relevant. The Tiger is
> somewhat of an exception because it came with dual exhaust. But a lot of
> people who say headers "woke up" their car typically had a single exhaust to
> start. So, sure going to headers AND dual exhaust will make a difference.
> I'm not down on headers, it just comes down to need, cost and added possible
> troubles (leaks, dents, clearance etc.). Remember too that "Bigger is not
> always better." Nor is there a desire to "have back pressure." What you
> want is velocity. The exhaust piping size should be matched to a desired RPM
> range.
>
> Which brings me to the concept of variable exhaust. Just like there are
> multi valve engines that allow for good intake velocity and the ability to
> meet an added demand I'm surprised there aren't designs that follow a
> similar concept on the exhaust side. I'm thinking of a smaller primary
> exhaust pipe with a sprung flap that vents to a larger pipe secondary pipe
> on demand. Anyway, just thinking out loud.
> Tom _______________________________________________
>
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