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With yalls help my transmission is out and hopefully will have it back from the shop soon. While its out, I decided to pull my factory exhaust manifold and put on headers. Im having a hard time getting good info on proper fitment. My truck is a 78 3/4 ton trailer special. Extended cab 4x4. Some sites suggest that the Dana 60 front axle poses a problem. Any suggestions on which headers would fit and be good?
All of my research suggests that fender headers are the way to go. It gets pretty tight between the frame rails for dual exhaust especially with a 4x4 transfer case etc.
Tons of room outside the frame rails and you can still tuck it up nice and high. That’s the route I would go.
Ok thanks for the info! Im trying to avoid fender well exits just because of the visibility of the headers so those are going to be last resort for me. Sanderson makes a type of block-hugger header (https://www.summitracing.com/parts/s...-250/year/1978) that per summit should fit my truck. What opinions do you guys have? Would I be able to use those and still have enough room to run true duals without getting outside of the frame?
No mater what headers you run (inside the frame rail, block huggers, shorties, long tube) you have to deal with steering shaft, and brake line re-route. And clutch linkage (it is is a manual). And even if an auto trans you have to work around the front drive shaft and the xfer case. If done wrong, you will have the rest of the exhaust pipe routed below the xfer case cross member and then you have a visual nightmare and a snagging bunch of BS down there. Go for it, if you have a real good exhaust shop and run dvr side over the the passenger side then route BOTH beside the xfer case above the cross member.
I had some inside the frame rail exit on a 4wd F150 auto trans PITA PITA and never again. I now have Hedman fenderwell exits on a 4wd 79 F250 and easy peasy to run the rest of the exhaust. And even turn it out in front of the rear tires, to save the pipe and the cost of up and over the rear axle.
Done wrong IMO 4wd F150 see how LOW they exit, I believe they are long tube. But you still have to deal with pipe and routing.
Yes 4wd F250 but you get my point. 4wd F150 with a real good exhaust shop or DIY. Dvr crosses over to the pass and then both down the side of the xfer case and above the cross member.
The cross over.
And straight back and in front of the rear tire exit.
I’m running headman headers on my 79 F350 4x4 with a 400 and Dana 60 front axle. The truck has a 2-3” lift and there are no front axle to exhaust issues. The passenger side fit good but the drivers side exited right in front of the trans crossmember. I fixed this by shortening the collector of the passenger side header and giving it a slight angle upward. I also shortened the tubes to move the bottom of the header up. From there I ran the dual exhaust down the passenger side with a crossover tube coming from the drivers side over to the passenger side. First pic is of the modified header vs an original one. Second pic shows where I cut and welded the header tubes. Third pic shows the crossover tube and the exhaust going over and past the trans crossover tube. Exhaust has been on the truck for 8 years or so now with no issues.
