for those of you with headers on a 302......did you reuse the bracket supporting the upper intake manifold and the bracket supporting the tube coming off the smog pump? (both on passenger side)

by the way......

i installed some POS headers off ebay and CANNOT get them sealed. tried thick copper gaskets and even took it to a mechanic. still nothing. im looking into a GOOD set of shorties or maybe even stock manifolds. i dont care about power....i would sacrifice power and mpg for no exhaust leaks.

 

If the header surfaces that mate with the heads are flat, you can apply exhaust manifold RTV on both sides of the gasket, use something like ARP studs that don't stretch when you torque them, and torque them down good by hand as not to snap them.

Then you shouldn't have any leaks from between the headers and the heads.

If they're wavy, slightly warped, or deeply scratched, you might have to have the headers decked (and/or the heads) so things line up properly.

 

i dont plan on reusing them. i plan on throwing them in our pond once they come off. im leaning towards the hedman elite.....

my main question is the brackets.......do i need them?

 

Lets say this, ford probably didnt put it there for no reason. With that said, I took mine of my truck when i put headers on and never put it back on. I havent had any issues related to that. I am also not planning on puting it back on, so yeah. I guess if my intake manifold breaks then thats too bad. If you think about it though, they make plates that attach to the lower intake manifold where the upper bolts on that are made to lift the whole engine. The upper manifold it made of aluminum just like the lower manifold, so i would think if it could lift the whole engine then it could hold a 50 lb intake manifold. I'm sure ford was probably thinking about longevity when they put that bar on. Maybe things will loosen up with that weight on one side like that, i'm not sure, but so far things have been fine for me, and its been a year, so yeah.

 

I didn't put those brackets back on when I installed my 5.8 over 6 years ago now. No problems so far.

 

looks like i wont be putting them back on.....thanks for the help

 

If you've got a 302 (5.0L), then yes, I'd recommend putting them back on. Those that say nay have been lucky so far. That's a lotta weight hanging on six relatively small bolts, and more significantly, the flange on the plenum is not very big either. I think that's asking for an intake to come off.

I bought the Ford Racing shorties, which come complete with a bung in the right side header for the O2 sensor. All it takes is replacing one of the bolts with a longer one, and a spacer to shim out for the bracket to the same depth as the old manifolds were. Mind you, I didn't install my own, and had to do some cleanup on the work that the Ford dealership did, but so far, 35K miles, and no leaks.

I still want to move the O2 sensor to the header, and get rid of the Y-pipe completely. But, I still haven't gotten a definitive answer on whether a cross-over is necessary or not. There is only one O2 sensor on the '92 F150 5.0L (which is kinda weird since my '86 T-Bird with 3.8L V6 has two).

Anybody remember seeing trucks in the 70's with side pipes mounted just below the doors and turned out or down? My step-brother had a '77 model with Hooker long-tube headers and Lakesider side pipes. That thing sounded awesome for a 302. But, back then, there were no catalytic converters on trucks to worry about. As I recall, he had no cross-over pipe either. Since the '92 uses speed-density with bank firing on the injectors, it won't matter if the O2 sensor sniffs one side or two. It doesn't individually adjust the injector pulses, so that shouldn't be an issue. I'm more curious if this is going to cause some sort of vibration or harmonics in the engine that'll rattle the whole thing apart. I wanna get rid of the cats (no inspections) and open up the exhaust for a little performance and better mileage.

 

These motors will run fine with 1 O2 sensor. Mine only had 1 before the the MAF conversion, and still only has 1. All the plugs look great, and it doesn't throw codes.
A crossover pipe between headers in not necessary. On a true dual system it will improve exhaust gas scavenging and reduce noise slightly.. but there's no damage potential without one. My budies '73 Duster ran for years without a crossover on the dual exhaust. It sounded wild and could move your pants legs 10ft behind the car at idle. After installing a crossover it was never quite had the same rumble.

 

Yeah, you'll be fine with 1 sensor, the computer won't really mess with it that much. Heck, I even forgot to turn one of mine back on for a while on the Cobra (TwEECer) after dyno tuning once.. Never noticed a difference.