anyone have experience with full length headers on a 71 riviera? i've heard you have to trim the transmission support (cross member) to make them fit. how about starter access or other tight squeezes? any recommendations on header brand and model? anyone tried shorty headers on a 71? thanks
Bill Sodt Johnny, Bill Sodt from the Riviera Owners Assoc, just did the shortys on his Boattail. He wrote a nice piece on it. I hope he won't mind....here it is Some members asked I relay my experiences to the list with this little project. First I showed the new TA shorty headers to the muffler/exhaust guy who will be doing the rest of the exhaust and to say the least he was extremely impressed with the quality and build of the headers. So far so good! Next was the install. Let me start by saying that the car im putting these on already had the stock manifolds off and was rebuilt recently so the parts and surfaces were clean. You could possibly install them without raising the engine but I liked the room and ease by raising it. I raised one side at a time so it was tilted at a angle. Rather than telling you about every bolt here were the points of interest. This was installed on a stock 1972 Riviera with a new 455 I used the gaskets provided by TA, they seem good quality I bought a set of Stage 8 locking bolts header from Summit racing and some thread locker. Passenger side was not bad (I removed the air compressor, alternator, and the big bracket they bolt to), all bolts were easy enough to get to. Some more work than others. However with the way that the headers are built I was only able get the locks for the bolts on 4 of the bolts. On the other 3 there was just not enough room for the clip so I just tightened them. Driver side was close to a heart attack but I prevailed. ha-ha I didnt have to remove anything, the power steering pump was ok where it was at. While the quality of the headers was good a little more care in the design of where the bolts go in would be nice. About 2 or 3 bolts were so close to the header that neither a socket or a box wrench would fit over the bolt. I had to tighten with a open end wrench, which is not the best way. Since they had came powder coated I couldnt heat them and try dinging a little dent into them. The PAIN was the lower center bolt!!!!! These is almost no room for the bolt much less a finger and a bolt. What I had to do was, grind that lower center bolt down about 3mm and install first. After that the others were not bad except for the fact that again I could only get 4 of the locks installed for the stage 8 bolt set. Some of you might have had better luck than me but I wanted to say what I ran across. I imagine with some more specialized tools ($) the job might have gone a little easier and faster all I have is a good set of Craftsman tools, nothing exotic. It took about 6 hours total and that included some new chrome valve covers being installed. I added before and after pics of the job at link under the PROGRESS link toward the bottom. Because its limited to a set bytes per hour you may have to try again later. I had them black powder coated gloss. You have to look close but you can see them in the picture. Bill ROA10273
ok... Went thru this with my Centurion - which is pretty much identical as far as the undercarriage goes. TA Stage1 full length headers will fit with some massaging. The motor must be jacked up to get them to slide into place. There are 2 tubular brackets near the tranny xmember bolted to the frame that must permanently leave. Now you have 2 choices: Modify the crossmember to get the exhaust humps to line up, or bend the headers in to get them to match. Voila, you have headers that fit! I had a GOOD exhaust shop to the work...and watched over their shoulder the whole time. They were sweatin, but they got it done.
thanks to both. how much modification to the x-member for full length? cut out a chunk on one side? any need to reinforce it after that?
I would notch it for the pipes, and then paybe try to weld some metal up on top over the arch, so you have some added strength, since you're losing so much when you notch it.
next time you're under your car, maybe you could snap a picture of the modified x-member that shows how it's been cut. no big hurry, but if possible it would be a big help. thanks.
I didn't modify my x-member...I did the other option - bending the headers to meet up with the humps in the current crossmember.
I run the full length headers from Poston on both of my 76 LeSabres(very similar frame layout to the Riv). I did have to slightly relocate the diagonal braces that run from the bottom of the engine saddle back to the frame. One of them now misses the headers, and the other runs through the tubes. I ditched my trans crossmembers since being from 1976, they were for single exhaust. Instead I ran the tubular Pontiac/Chevrolet style for the 71-74 fullsize car. The two humps lined up close enough to run 3" exhaust without modification.
I think the long and the short of it is, unless you are totally sold on full length headers go with the shorties. hee hee hee that be a pun.
OK, here is the poop on installing the shorties........ For me to access the rear-most passenger-side bolt I must pile a lot of towels and moving blankets in the engine bay, then literally lay across the engine to reach back there. And you MUST start all the bolts at generally the same time. If you run the easiest-to-reach bolts all the way in, other bolts just won't fit. So install 2 or 3 easy bolts a few threads then work the others in. All the bolts are accessable with a box wrench. However, the center driver's side bolt needs a very thin wrench to fit. I have a set of cheap Taiwan wrenches and the 3/8 box wrench fits very nicely. Other people have ground down a cheap box wrench just to use for the headers. A very good idea. And as for starting the center driver's bolt... TA says to poke the bolt through the hole then wrap the threads with very narrow masking tape to hold the bolt in place. This way, when you start to cinch up the header with the easily reached bolts, the masked bolt will be pulled against its hole and a few turns with a wrench will start the bolt threading into the hole. But I found that a fat "O" ring works just fantastically! You can buy a box of assorted O rings at any auto parts store. And the oring crushes nicely, so it won't prevent the bolt from seating all the way like masking tape could. The shorties fit beautifully and offer good performance. And you don't have to bend or ding them, and you certainly don't have to cut or modify your floor pans or crossmember.
The full length headers should give you some perfomance advantages but one thing I wonder is how much of an performance enhancement do you get with shortys in comparison with stock manifolds... I am planning on using the full length headers on my Boattail....
