I am putting a 460 into a 99 F150 and don't know where to get a set of headers. It looks like a tight fit around the rear A arm mounts. Does anyone know where i could get a set of weld up headers? Thanks in advance!!!

 

www.headersbyed.com they sell do it yourself header kits and parts

 

Thanks for the info. now the decisions have to be pondered.great site!!!

 

If you're going to buy header parts, and weld them up yourself, you can just as easily bore through plate steel with a hole saw and make your own header plates.

Headers by Ed charges about $200 for a set of header plates... which is really just two pieces of 1/4" thick steel about 19" long, which will cost you about $12. You can lay the exhaust gaskets on the plates and cut them out with a hole saw, a plasma cutter, an oxy/acetelyne cutting torch, or a scroll saw after you drill a pilot hole.

I'm cheap, guess which method I chose

You can also take straight tubing and hack it up in small, angled sections, and make curved sections that way as well. Or, you can buy mandral bent tubing and cut it to fit, or have your exhaust shop bend the tubing of your choice as well.

Nothing against HeadersbyEd.com, they make good stuff for sure. But, if you are so inclined, you could do it significantly cheaper. You're trading your time, for your money.

 

i was looking at headersbyed, and their kits aren't cheap, so saving $$ wouldn't be the motivation there.

frederic, if a person is planning on welding their own headers, do you bend your own pipe, or weld together prebent pieces cut to the correct angle, or??? how do you design your own header?

 

My answer is "it depends".

What I do is make a 'jig' first. Here is my jig for my turbo manifolds:



The long plate with the gold colored bolts is the head plate, and the upright and 6"x5" angled plate on top is what I clamped the turbo flange too, in order to tack weld the headers together. You'd want to do something similar, except put the flange to the back of the engine.

Then you cut the angles on the collector pieces, like so:



Then weld them together....



Now that my collector/turbo flange is done, I'll clamp it to my jig, and cut small sections of pipe at various angles and make bends that way. This particular pipe has a very thick wall (almost 1/4") so bending it is going to be very difficult. So it's easier to hack out small "trapazoids" and weld them together. For a turbo manifold, going on a 500cid stroker, this is just fine for street use. Anyway, mounted on the jig ready for homemade elbows. At the bottom you can see the "hole saw cut" header plate:




If I were building a regular header, using thinner wall tubing, I'd have it bent by a muffer shop, or try to offset that cost by purchasing muffer shop "mistakes". Most shops have a shelf, or 55 gallon oil drum with bent tubing they messed up sticking out. Often, they'll sell that off at or a little below cost, just to get rid of it.

 

Anyway, what I'm trying to illustrate is I build the header plate first, then the collector (you'rs will look more normal than mine), then hack out the sections between using prebent, or angle cuts of pipe to form bends by welding, or mistakes from muffler shops. Lots of ways to do this. I do it cut to fit. And I start off with the difficult runners first - the shorter ones...

Here are some examples of homemade "bends" out of very inexpensive, oddball materials (this cost me four dollars, and the air fitting and valve is so I could pressure test and verifiy my first weld was getting good penetration):



The above was made with cast steel, home depot plumbing elbows. And here is another "elbow" made of three sections of black pipe, with each end of each section hacked off at 22.5 degrees.

Welded and scorching hot:


Cooled off with beads ground down:



If this doesn't excite your sense of frugality...

Stahl Header Bends:
http://www.stahlheaders.com/Frame%20Tubing.htm

Stahl Header Bend MISTAKES (i.e. cheaper):
http://www.stahlheaders.com/Web%20Tube%20PBM_1.html

Like I said, all muffer shops have incorrectly bent stuff somewhere! Walk in with a huge smile and see what you can find! Sometimes they want you to take all of it for "X" price. I've had good luck suggesting I'll take all of the mistakes of one particular diameter instead...

 

Frederic, you make me laugh! At myself, not at you! 'fact is, at age 43 I'm just about halfway through my first welding class and ... uhm ... this degree of fabrication represents a higher degree of ambition than might be realistic for me.

Very inspiring however!

 

Why is it unrealistic?

I'm not a professional. I'm a monkey with a neat tool, nothing more.

Think about this... what's a better way to practice, than wasting $25 worth of steel and 40-50 hours of your time making a crooked, lopsided header?

Since you're taking a class, you've already realized welding with any method takes practice, practice, and more practice.

Why not practice by trying to make something useful.

I'll do something I normally don't do, and give a really good example of failed, grotesque welding technique.



Tell me that's not the ugliest piece of crap you've ever seen?

Practice makes perfect! So weld up your headers and quit whining!!!!!

::smile::

 

There are other options. Nobody makes headers to fit my motor / trucks combination and in my experience headers rarely fit well anyway. I bought a set of 460 truck headers as close to the year model as I could get. Just cut the tubes off that run into anything and reroute them. I ended up only having to cut and reroute 2 tubes. (A lot less work than making a whole set) You can buy mandrel bent tubing fairly cheaply. There's a picture in my gallery

 

Thanks for the idea's. Looking at your pic's, how did you make those sharp angle cuts on those short pieces of pipe,especially the ones with multiple cuts? i can't make cuts at that sharp of an angle in my chop saw!!

 

Gleaner:

I took two sections of 2" square tubing, and placed them in parallel in the clamp as if I was going to cut them, but not that close to the blade. Maybe, a 1/4" gap. Then between them, I put a pipe scrap on the "away" side, and on the blade side, I put the piece I was going to cut at the angle I wanted it. Then clamped all that together.

Then to cut, I let the blade do the work. Starting the cut is the hardest part because the tendency is to push down, and that slides the blade down the pipe, curving the blade. You have to 'nibble' slowly. Once you get into the pipe about 1/8"-1/4", then you can do a real "chop" and push the blade down.

I tried "C" clamps, and cut along the length, and various other methods and this worked the best.

 

Going to give it a try tomorow. Thank You!!!

 

Here is a bad picture LMAO :