Headers?

[Dad56]

You guys will be please to know that I have decided to keep the 62 Meteor that I bought as a father/son project that son lost interest in some time ago. Its been sitting in garage and wife said fix it or move it!!. Have not been on the site in awhile but Im back to ask for some help. I put a 1966 289 with C4 in the car. What headers with fit this combo-will the Mustang shorty headers work. Will any headers for the Fox body Mustangs work. You see a million of them on Ebay for sale cheap.-I have a B&M floor shifter(Cable) so linkage should not be a problem. Thanks

[STU]

The only headers that will fit the chassis without major mod's are the Hooker Super Comps #6134, Crites or Doug Thorleys, none of which are cheap at all. They all start around $320 and up. Trust me, we've all looked for cheap headers for these cars....they just don't exist without cutting and hacking.

[JOhnC in Ark]

Well try a set of cheapies, after working for two ir three days, you will go with Hooker or another BIG NAME Brand.

[w2zero]

There are three choices and they are all Hooker Supercomp 6134's.

The Crites for this platform have large primary tubes that will be fine for a race car and they are very good but correspondingly expensive.

The Doug's were built on a 66 Fairlane, they will not fit without major hair loss and wearing out some hammers, knuckles, long distance calls and return shipping for ruined headers.

[STU]

I didn't know the Thorley's didn't fit as I don't know anyone who bought them. I can say for sure that the super comps fit, they are a little tight on the drivers side near the toe board and the transmission but I didn't have to hammer mine at all.

[S33METEOR]

Also the hi po mustang manifolds will work but only CERTAIN cstg.# C30Z-9431-B & C40Z-9431? I see in the
Mustangs Unlimited catalog they have excellent repro's yet they call out cstg# C30Z-9431-B & C5ZZ-9430-B. I DON'T KNOW IF THESE WILL FIT, but they are priced good at $225.00. I guess the main thing was to make sure they didn't have the heat chock provision.
Yet the super comp's would be the way to go, seeing you relocated the shifting.

[JohnC in Ark]

What about the TRI-Ys I see for sale?

[STU]

Doug Thorley makes the tri-y's.

[w2zero]

The tri-y's will fit the 66 and up Fairlanes.

The choices with the HiPo cast headers are the Falcon/Mustang ones and the Fairlane. They first came out on the 63 K Fairlane and had the choke stove on the pass side. They dropped it in the 64 model run. The Mustang/Falcon piece is very slightly different in where the pinch is to clear the shock tower brace interference vs the Fairlane.

Mine are the C30E-9431-B passenger side and the C42E09430-A for the driver side. There is about a quarter inch of clearance on each side. I got them from Tony Branda racing for 225 us five years ago. The only difference in quality I have heard about is some of the repro's without the cast in ID numbers had problems with sealing and cracks. They should be malleable cast iron like the originals.

[Dad56]

I'm going to stick with the stock casts that are on the 289 and have muffler shop run dual pipe system for me.

[ca]

i dont know if you got out of those other posts that the shorties wont work either but i bought a set and they wont work. i even gave modifyin them a thought but they wont work at all. those hipo cast irons look appealin though and they are sposed to work pretty good and the duals will make a huge difference
its great ya decided to keep the project. the kids gonna be jealous when you're done #nosmileys

[w2zero]

This was way back when I first installed them and the engine.




I have since painted them with VHT white.



You can see the bleed-through in the white so I blasted and repainted them with POR 20 silver.

[Meteorgirl]

Repeat after me
HOOKER 6134 SUPER COMPS
Everthing else is a waste of time and shock towers. Save up and buy them. They're worth every penny.

[STU]

I opted for the ceramic coated Super Comps, they claim 9-12HP more than plain steel headers and they won't rust. The coating is gauranteed for 5 years. ;D I was looking for performance so the super comps were my only option.

[eflow]

I just spent the weekend installing Hooker 6134s and they fit, kind of. I am having to modify the third tube on the passenger side. The pipe comes forward instead of sloping back so it is hitting the shock tower and the holes are off by over half an inch. So a little cutting and rewlding will need to happen. Other than that the passenger side will be quite nice. As for the driver side, that was a job getting it in. Had to jack the car up as far as we could get it, put in jack stands, then put the jack on cinder blocks and jack it up again to get enough clearance. That was nerve racking. The driver side went in in about five minutes. We just needed to find the right angles and twists. All the holes line up but the second tube, the one that comes over the top is right on the shock tower. Grrrr. I really have three choices. A- take it out and cut and reweld. B- wedge a prybar between the tower and the header and do a little bending (this could result in a broken weld which means going back to plan A) or C- let it bang its way clear (I know that's way redneck! If there was time yesterday to pull it back out and send it along with the other one, that's what I would have done but my fabricating/shop buddy had to take off so we left it as is.

Now, how the heck do you get the spark plugs back in! I mean there is just no room! I think that down the road I may need that mustang II front end so I can sack these darn shock towers.

All in all it went well. Plans are for short glasspacks that will dump out right in front of the rear wheels.