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headers

stepside454
Explorer
Explorer
We recently purchased our 2nd motor home,an upgrade from our 85 Pace Arrow. its a 96 Fleetwood Bounder 36S of a Ford F53 with a 460. its in great shape, runs & dries good, my biggest complaint is lack of power on hills, even small grades. I recently ordered a set of Gibson headers for it & plan to put them on soon as well as a Flowmaster 50 Series Big Block muffler. im looking forward to seeing what kind of improvement I get.
21 REPLIES 21

J-Rooster
Explorer
Explorer
PastorCharlie wrote:
I had a Banks system installed on a 460 and it was a great improvement in torque, quietness, and engine performance.
X-2 on Gale Banks for more power.

amxpress
Explorer
Explorer
...I'll stay with single exhaust, so the x pipe is out

Spending money for a nice set of headers, but leaving it single exhaust kind of defeats the purpose. The idea is to get the gasses to flow out with little restriction. Single exhaust is more restrictive than dual exhaust. Suggest going with dual exhaust if you really want to feel and see the benefits of your headers.
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stepside454
Explorer
Explorer
The Gibson headers are Tri y. I'll stay with single exhaust, so the x pipe is out.

othertonka
Explorer
Explorer
What ever you decide to do, ddo yourself a favor and soak the manifold bolts now and every day with a good penetrating oil. (PB blaster) . And be prepared for a couple of broken bolts along the way.
Othertonka
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PastorCharlie
Explorer
Explorer
I had a Banks system installed on a 460 and it was a great improvement in torque, quietness, and engine performance.

Daveinet
Explorer
Explorer
The Flowmaster muffler is complete garbage! You will not see much if any improvement installing a Chokemaster muffler. Beyond that, their tech support are complete idiots and do not have any remote clue of anything about engines.

When I first bought my motorhome, it had Flowmaster 50 series. I installed Thorley headers and saw very little performance gain. I then had the exhaust completely redone with Flowmaster 40 series installed. There was a significant improvement in performance, however the noise level was unbearable. I saw parents hiding their kids, when I pulled into the campgrounds. I had the 40 series pulled, and had 70 series installed. The noise level was much more tolerable, but I lost over 2 mpg and 2.6 seconds off my zero to sixty times ~10%) After much wasted experimentation based on Flowmaster's tech support, I gave up and installed Magnaflows. My power came back, and my mileage returned. Not only that, but the noise level inside the coach was quieter than with the 70 series Flowmasters. If you are going to install an exhaust system, you need to have straight through muffler, such Magnaflow or Dynomax. I would also suggest installing a H pipe or X pipe, which can be purchased from Summit Racing. X-pipe is better if you have the space, but it need to be within about 2 feet of the collector.

While Gibson will give you a decent improvement, I personally am partial to Tri-Y design, as it will have a much broader power band.


BTW: Since I was kicking those 70 series Chokemasters around my garage for so many years, I installed on on my 6 cylinder Jeep because it needed a new muffler. I assumed such an over sized muffler wouldn't do much damage, but as a matter of fact, there still felt some power loss in the top end. It was an old Jeep that didn't matter, but I was surprised that it had a negative impact on such a small motor.
IRV2

timmac
Explorer
Explorer
From my experience with headers on older motors it always helped with more torque, even some claim the motor ran a little cooler.

But be carful with load mufflers, the noise can drive you crazy on long trips.