headers

[stepside454]

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.

[stepside454]

Gibson headers installed & I am very pleased with the results. It has a lot more power on the hills.

[Jpony56hd]

I have the same problem as you with my 88 Gulfstream HiRise with the F53 chassis and 460 engine, although my engine is an 87 and the last year for the carburetor engine. I do not have to pass an emissions test anymore so I took a little more serious approach. Since the subject is about Headers, I'll stay on subject. I used Flow Tech Headers (a division of Holley ) for a 70's - early 80's Ford F-150 4X4 and they fit perfect. My main concern was the parking brake linkage on the left side but it passes in between down tubes without a hitch. I had to use offset collector pipes (from Headman) to clear the transmission cross member and am using an "H" pipe along with Turbo mufflers. While Headers and a free flowing exhaust system will improve overall performance, the gains from that alone will not be Earth Shattering. Only a coordinated and somewhat expensive redesign will show major power gains.

[Gonzo42]

You make some very good points. As you say, combustion chamber shapes are changing. H&H Flatheads now make Navarro heads with a 61cc volume for use with their S.Co.T superchargers (not a turbo).

Plenty of street rods out there with one and sometimes two turbos. I'm quite sure they run hefty radiators along with a shroud.

[Daveinet]

The other limitation is cooling. Cooling on a gasser is marginal anyway, so once you add a turbo, that adds heat. A street rod can handle it, because of the short duration load. Try pulling some long grade and you will likely get into trouble. It is also very likely they are not running pump gas. I can't imagine trying pay for airplane fuel every time you fill up. Back in the early 80s, there was a company that was selling an after market turbo install. Even though they were retuning it, they eventually ran into problems. I talked to them a year later and they stated they had to remove all of the kits they sold due to issues.

Turbos have now become popular on cars. (I have one on my Cooper). The difference is 2 fold. Somewhere in the late 90s, GM came out with the fast burn head. Basically it consists of a bubble around the spark plug and very little clearance on the rest of the piston surface. Part of the trick is that detonation typically happens along the outer surface of the piston. In a fast burn head, there isn't any fuel out there, so it is less prone to ignite prematurely. All the fuel is concentrated around the plug, so the flame does need to travel very far. It burns all at once. This means you need less advance to have the primary flame active at the right time to push down on the piston. You will see the specs for fast burn heads require less timing advance. As a result, they can run higher compression without detonation. I think now everyone has a fast burn design, they just don't call it that. The second issue is that they are now using direct injection. The advantage to that is that they spray the fuel into the cylinder just before it is going to be ignited by the spark. Because the fuel spray is so late in the stroke, it does not have time to heat up and detonate. So this also allows for higher compression. Those 2 issues are key to why turbos have become popular lately and never really worked out all that well on street cars of the past. Its a lot more than just the ECM preventing detonation by retarding the timing.

[Gonzo42]

I subscribe to and read Hot Rod and several other related magazines and I see turbos added to gas fueled vehicles quite a bit.

Since modern gassers already have EFI run by an ECU, it seems to me a turbo could work. The manifold boost is limited by the waste gate, and if the ECU detects detonation, it compensates by retarding the ignition. Some of these hot rods already run compression ratios of 11:1, which I admit, seems awfully high.

I'm sure supercharging using a Roots type supercharger with a 1:1 drive ratio would almost certainly not work for this application.

Anyway, I was just asking if anyone has tried a turbo on a gasser.

[Daveinet]

Those turbos are for diesels. The OP has a gasser. Installing a turbo on a gasser that is not made for one can get a little tricky. A turbo will raise the compression. One is going to be limited by detonation, so you would not be able to get much boost out of it anyway. Gas engines designed for a turbo typically have lower compression ratio. Yes, some of the modern engines are higher, but those are direct injection which prevents detonation.

[Gonzo42]

I'm speaking about turbo kits, not just exhaust and headers:

Gale Banks Turbo kits

[randallb]

If you want a quiet, efficient muffler purchase Spin Techs. On a 410 and 360 sprint car engine they showed almost no change in HP or torque during dyno pulls. The slight change noticed could easily have come from engine temp or atmospheric condition differences between the pulls. I am not affiliated with Spin Tech but if you have spent any time in the street performance market they do not drone, are not excessively loud, are competitively priced and are a quality part . www.spintechmufflers.com
Randy

[Daveinet]

Gonzo42 wrote:
Banks not only sells, but does the complete installation, tuning, etc. Sure, this costs several times the cost of headers and mufflers, but gives you several times the torque.

Can you prove that? Every independent test I have seen shows Tri-Y to have a broader power band and more power over all than a single long tube header.

[Gonzo42]

Banks not only sells, but does the complete installation, tuning, etc. Sure, this costs several times the cost of headers and mufflers, but gives you several times the torque.




The average dog is a nicer person than the average person. ---- Andrew A. Rooney

[Chopperbob]

Love the 3in straight thru magnaflow. Lots more power
and Sounds great. 1998 p30 7.4 vortec. Duell cats into
one muffler.

[RLS7201]

Gonzo42 wrote:
Since Banks was mentioned, has anyone considered adding a turbo? Seems to me it would eliminate most of the noise, provide more torque when needed, and probably improve MPG.

Your thought has merit but the complexities of adding a turbo are over whelming.
The EEC-IV ECM (OBD I) is speed density, not MAF and doesn't adapt to major changes in tune.
So after you figure out the plumbing, an aftermarket engine computer will be in order and then the transmission will need a baumannator transmission controller.

Richard

[Gonzo42]

Since Banks was mentioned, has anyone considered adding a turbo? Seems to me it would eliminate most of the noise, provide more torque when needed, and probably improve MPG.

[Nick-B]

A full dual exhaust won't pass any emission inspection for those of us who are under those regs.
I installed a CARB legal system of headers and single large exhaust system and it made a huge difference in the power of my 460 F53. The stock 460 manifolds are the main point of restriction so any improvement there releases the beast within. And yes, Flowmaster mufflers are LOUD. Magnaflows at a bit more civilized.