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  •  » Exhaust H-Pipe, Hedman shorty headers

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    8/22/2013 9:47 AM  #1

    wfhenderson
    FYI FORD Member

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    Registered: 8/14/2013
    Posts: 41

    Exhaust H-Pipe, Hedman shorty headers

    Steve (and group),

    This is a follow-up to my earlier question about interior droning, vibration causes etc. 

    Following advice received here, I am going to install an H-Pipe. I have read with interest the post and phots you have posted showing your home-made pipe and the emergency brake cable routing. Here are my questions.

    1) While my Hedman shorty headers are tight, they are not touching anything. At the closest point, there is about 1/4" clearance between one of the tubes and the shock tower on the passenger side, slightly more (maybe almost 1/2") on the driver side. My question is, if I can see daylight, is that good enough? My issues are around noise during cruising, and I doubt the engine would be torquing back and forth at speed. Or, should I use adjustable motor mounts and try to center the motor perfectly?

    2) On my current non-h-pipe setup, it is clear that the muffler shop welded the header collector adapter flanges to the cut ends of the primary pipes. While I am tempted to order the JBA H-shorty header pipe from the Mustangs Plus catalog, common sense tells me that I may have to wrestle with it to get it to fit with the Hedman headers, Would you:  Buy the JBA H pipe, Buy a stock H-Pipe and new header collector flanges for it and cut/weld, or try to fashion my own H-Pipe as you did?  (I am not inclined to try option #3 because in my opinion the pipes are oddly spaced and widely splayed compared to your photos; God knows what the muffler shop did, perhaps welded the header flanges at an angle.

    I can weld, my emergency brake configuration concerns me as I don't have a good idea about how the cable routing would work, and I am reminded that the reason I do not have an H-Pipe currently is because the exhaust shop discarded it when they could not make it fit with my Tremec T3550 5 speed.

    many thanks

    Kind regards, Bill Henderson
     

    8/22/2013 11:49 AM  #2

    MS
    Forum Originator

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    From: Canyon Lake, Texas
    Registered: 1/24/2013
    Posts: 11,729

    Re: Exhaust H-Pipe, Hedman shorty headers

    I would eliminate the 3-bolt header flanges and use the ball&socket style.  SUMMIT racing has them for a reasonable price.  You can buy them where the "ball" end fits to the 3" collectors and the output or "socket" end is whatever size your exhaust tubing is.  They bolt together with two bolts and are a very good seal without a gasket.

    I would not buy a JBA H-pipe unless you have JBA headers.  Otherwise it will not mate up.  Even my JBA H-pipe did not mate up properly with the JBA headers it was designed for.  That is why I had to remove and reconstruct the crossover pipe.

    If your TKO is bolted in using an aftermarket crossmember, without raising the drive tunnel atop the tranny, it is probably hanging alot lower than mine at the rear.  So, you will have to re-engineer the ebrake as I did, but in a different location most likely.  I shortened the lever arm on mine so it would fit between the two pipes, by about 3/4".  I am removing the plastic handle and replacing it with a billet aluminum handle so when I have to exert more force on it due to the shorter lever arm, it won't bend or break.  My original one has been trying to break off for about 15 years now...  I do not like the billet handle, but I think if I paint it gloss black and the letters white, it may blend in OK.

    My Hedman headers had about 1/8" clearance between the shock tower and were never a problem.  With the flowmaster 50 series mufflers I never had a drone problem.  I used 2-1/2" pipe to the mufflers and 2-1/4" for tailpipes.  I wonder if the fact that mine was a 351W has anything to do with the lack of drone.  I do not remember that ever being a problem on  my car, with any mufflers or pipes.

    Money you enjoy wasting is NOT wasted money... unless your wife finds out.
     

    8/22/2013 4:14 PM  #3

    whlnut
    I FYI 24-7

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    From: Brunswick, GA
    Registered: 4/02/2013
    Posts: 317

    Re: Exhaust H-Pipe, Hedman shorty headers

    Bill,

    Did you check your exhaust hangers, as mentioned by MS in a previous post? They have to be flexible enough to not transmit vibration, especially at the mufflers.

    Ed

     

    8/22/2013 8:33 PM  #4

    wfhenderson
    FYI FORD Member

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    Registered: 8/14/2013
    Posts: 41

    Re: Exhaust H-Pipe, Hedman shorty headers

    Ed, yes I did, and the hangers seem alright. I will try to adjust them anyway to see if it makes a difference. Thanks.

    Kind regards, Bill Henderson
       •Thread Starter
     

     

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