How To Build Your Own Headers

This is a story about building a '67 Chevy II with a modern drivetrain, brakes, and steering. The body came out of a shed behind a barn in the middle of a cornfield in southwestern Virginia. It features genuine N.O.S. quarter-panels and fenders, combined with a frame and rollcage from Art Morrison. The motor is an LS1 from a '98 F-body, which came complete with two spun bearings. I got a complete replacement bottom-end from Lingenfelter Performance. The transmission is a Viper T56 six-speed mated to the LS1 using a GM bellhousing. I haven't done it yet, but I will have to replace the input shaft with a GM version since the Viper and GM input shafts are different lengths and diameters. The rearend is a 9-inch Ford, narrowed by Art Morrison. Both front and rear suspensions are coilover-based; the front is a Mustang II-derived design with tubular A-arms, and the rear is a four-bar with Panhard bar. Baer brakes are sitting in boxes, waiting to be called on to stop the car...if it ever gets going!

Obviously, no header company makes a header specifically for this combination. That's where Headers by Ed comes in. Eddy Henneman sells header kits for oddball combinations, though they require some fabrication skills. After I filled out his extensive questionnaire, Ed recommended a 1-5/8x36-inch equal-length header for this combination. This article outlines how I made the driver-side header.

The kit comes with mandrel-bent U-bends and J-bends, collectors, reducers (from the 3-inch collector to a 2-inch for the exhaust tubes), some straight tubing, O2 bungs, and flanges. Each flange is 1/2-inch thick, with about 4 inches of tubing TIG-welded in place and ground smooth, which really saves time during fabrication, since you don't have to dress these welds later when the header is complete.