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Thorley headers on a V10 Excursion - interference issue
Hi all - I'm working on installing a set the Doug Thorley headers on my 2000 Excursion with the V10. I finally finished fighting thru the exhaust manifold studs and put the headers in place. The driver's side one fits good but the passenger side header interferes with the rear a/c lines coming out of the a/c accumulator. Obviously this only an excursion problem because the trucks don't have rear a/c. Anyways, I'm wondering if anyone has run into this issue before and what you did about it?
Well yes, obviously the lines need to move. Unfortunately there's not a whole lot of flexibility or room to move them. I'd really rather not open up the ac system. I have no doubt I'll figure something out, I was just wondering if anyone has solved this issue before. Seems like it should have come up sometime in the past 18 years by now haha!
My Banks headers were also very close to the AC lines in that area, maybe not as tight as yours looks but very close. I left the lines in place and wedged some high heat rated ceramic insulation in between the headers and AC lines. That was six years ago and so far everything is still doing fine with no issues.
Here is my situation that has worked out well.
I used 2" wide ceramic header wrap (which you really shouldn't ever use on a street car) layered to triple thickness then wrapped in thick aluminum foil, I then safety wired that insulation pad in place.
The Banks headers came with that extra added section of stainless plate to help with heat shielding too.
Thanks for the picture of the banks headers. The thorleys are definitely worse, they still needed to go a 1/2" up in that picture I posted. I will definitely consider header wrap on the a/c lines.
I'm hoping there is some adjustment in my motor mounts. Moving it a 1/2" over and down would help a lot. Beyond that I'll still have to redo the bracket that holds the a/c lines in place to move them out and up. This may involve notching the shock tower a little as the a/c lines hit that when I tried to push them out of the way yesterday. Between all that and some header wrap on the a/c lines, I should be able to make it work. I'll report back with pics on whatever I figure out.
I was looking at Doug Thorley Headers, but they told me that they don't make them for our trucks, just for Pick-ups. Guess it might be due to us having rear A/C?
I was looking at Doug Thorley Headers, but they told me that they don't make them for our trucks, just for Pick-ups. Guess it might be due to us having rear A/C?
I was looking at Doug Thorley Headers, but they told me that they don't make them for our trucks, just for Pick-ups. Guess it might be due to us having rear A/C?
Not quite. If you look at the instructions for the THY-218Y-C headers from their website, It clearly states "FORD 6.8L V-10 1999-04 F250/ 350/ EXCURSION" on the first page.
From what I can gather from that thread, this thread, and a couple more, the 2000-2001's, and I think the 2002's seem to have the problem of the AC lines routed the way you see in the first posting on this thread. Later models are routed so they come from the back of the engine like the ones in Tom's pictures above and have no issues with the install. I think it is still a good idea to put something on the lines to insulate them for all years.
Maybe that is why they are backing off from advertising them for Excursions. Even though they fit the 2003 thru 2005's without issue.
Is there anyone with a 2002 v10 Ex that could take a look and tell us what their AC routing is? It would help to see if the 2002's would have header issues.
The only absolute fix for this would be to get a A/C Shop to install the lines from a later model. But we all know that is a lot of bucks.
I guess I never got back to this. I ended up just bending the lines out of the way and fabbing up an extension of the existing bracket to hold them out of the way. They were still close, so I wrapped the lines up good in header wrap. I had to notch the shock tower a little too clear the bracket extension. Altogether not a big deal.
The headers themselves are, well, interesting. They definitely increased power/torque - it takes noticeably less pedal to get the same acceleration. But the exhaust sound went to crap. The system was/is the stock cat followed by the biggest 3.5" oval body muffler Magnaflow makes, then a 4" mandrel bent universal tail pipe. With the manifolds and Ford y-pipe, this system was the bomb. Easily the best sounding Ford V10 I've ever heard. I was really proud of the sound. But now with the headers, the sound is so much worse somehow. The idle got a lot deeper, which is nice, but anything off idle just sounds like non-descript buzz. 4500 rpm WOT lost all it's bark and growl somehow. I also picked up a bad drone at 2400 rpm (which is highway rpms due to the 4.30 gears). I tried adding a 1/4 wave resonator to kill the drone but it didn't do much. So more experimenting to do there. I'd like to work a chambered muffler into the system to get the sound waves bouncing around and see if that does anything. Problem is chambereds are too loud by themselves and there's not much extra room with the giant magnaflow.
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