How many of you guys vote for Ted being the next author of a "Y block book"? Obviously, one geared towards performance. In my opinion its about time for another one to hit the mainstream, dispell the myths, tell the real story, and give all of the performance features of the mightY engine we love.

Is one of these the headers I sent home with you last year? I think they were pickup style. You had once said you thought they would flow very well. Also how is my project going? Chuck in NH

I would like to concur with the rest of the guys that we are so lucky that we have you doing all the testing for us and I can tell you it has been very beneficial to me and many of us Y-Blockers.  I saw a post a while back that Alan Frakes had made indicating that he might be sending you  a set of the Bird headers that J. Mummert handles.  David Church has a set he will run on his E-Bird that he is restoring and I have a set that will be on my Bird if we can ever get through with the restoration.

Thanks to You Again for all your work.

Chuck.  The chrome pickup headers you sent back with me are labeled as “Tri-Y pickup headers firing order specific-CC” on the chart.  They actually performed quite well.

As far as your engine goes, the 471 heads are ported and are currently getting the finished valve work done to them.   Still debating on which way to go on the valve springs but that will come to me when the time comes.  Block work is finished.  The short block just needs the crankshaft balanced and it will then be ready to assemble.

The JC headers are built by Jerry Christenson.  You’ll have to give him a call and check on the availability.  His phone number as well as some of the header information is listed at the following link.

http://www.y-blocksforever.com/yestertech.html

Firstly I'd like to follow on with kind comments that other members have. I realize that your time is worth money and that any time that you spend on projects like this could be spent on your own projects or personal life. I don't think that I have seen a more comprehensibly tested engine with information on so many components. Thanks for a great effort.

Please could we have more information on what the individual headers are and if they are available commercially?

Regards

Warren Adams

Did you paint the ported iron heads silver or are you testing a cross-over system with aluminum heads?

I am surprised to see good results with 1-1/2" headers. When I tried some we got pretty poor results. I admit I didn't try different extension pipes.

I don't want to say too much just yet but there are some passenger car headers in the works. I don't know how long they will take or even what the final configuration will be. The builder is a name you will recognize if they come to the market.

I can only hope that he stays after the project and the results are worth the wait.

Thanks to Paul for the loan of the clutch linkage to help things along.

John Mummert (2/14/2011)

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Did you paint the ported iron heads silver or are you testing a cross-over system with aluminum heads?

I am surprised to see good results with 1-1/2" headers. When I tried some we got pretty poor results. I admit I didn't try different extension pipes.

The heads being used for the exhaust test are just glass beaded with some clear over them to keep them from rusting.  Several sets of heads were tested prior to the exhaust test and each set was colored differently to help differentiate them during the test.  There will be more on the head tests in an upcoming article for the Y-Block Magazine.

Extension pipes made considerable difference on some of the systems.  Although I had messed with extensions on the drag cars in the past, I started working more extensively with them on the dyno with the EMC project.  With this exhaust test, I simply took those learnings and tried to apply them to a variety of the systems that were being tested.  A good example was the Maxton Mile headers.  They were way down on power when tested straight out of the collectors with no extensions but with 32” and 40” of 3” diameter extension, the power levels jumped straight up to the top.  As became evident during the course of this test, exhaust tuning is too often overlooked.

 Single exhaust with crossover pipe

 1955/56 Dual Exhaust manifolds

 Reds two tube headers

 1957 Dual Exhaust manifolds

 Fenton cast iron manifolds

 Tri-Y stepped shorty Tbird headers non-firing order specific – GB

 Ram Horns w/2”into 2¼” pipes

 Shorty 1.625” w/box collectors - DC

 Sanderson 1½” T-Bird headers

 JC 4 tube car chassis shorty headers

 Tri-Y pickup headers firing order specific-CC

 Sanderson 1½” Pickup headers


  Reds four tube headers

  Fenderwell headers 1.75” tubes - MW

  Fenderwell headers 1.625” tubes

  KC 4 tube Maxton Mile 1 5/8” headers

  EMC headers 1.75”/1.875” stepped


  Jardine small tube headers

  Unequal length 'by design' tubes


Jon Kaase EMC headers

 Sanderson should send you some R & D money.  I would never have thought the torque numbers on the t-bird headers would be that high. I would never considered them if not for your dyno numbers. Did you try any extensions on them to see if the torque picked up any? Thanks for your dedication to the Y-block, it takes alot of guessing out of what works.

Thanks for the information, This is the best real world info that I have read about header design.  Theory on paper and actual number sometimes are far apart. Thanks for taking the time to establish easy to understand data. And yes graphs are wonderful!

If you don`t mind another question regarding your recent exhaust test. From looking at your results it seems to me that for a street driven car or in my case Tbird,that if I need to run mufflers and an exhaust system that includes no more than 2 1/2 inch pipes there is not a lot to be gained from hedders over a 57 factory dual system with mandrel bent pipes of a good size and low restriction mufflers. I can see that this leaves a lot of untapped horsepower at higher RPM but the cost/benefit ratio and noise considerations and the RPM that a street driven car use should be considered.

I would welcome any and all thoughts and comments regarding this. Thanks again for your excellent work and giving us so much useful data. Pete

Pete.  Here’s torque and horsepower graphs comparing the ‘57 exhaust manifolds against the Sanderson Thunderbird headers as tested with mufflers.  Just looking at the torque graph shows a favorable torque increase with the headers at cruising rpms versus using the ’57 exhaust manifolds.  Once the engine hits its power band in the mid 3000 rpm range, the headers just take off and run away from the factory exhaust manifolds.

Can't thank you enough for the great presentation of data, and the thorough exploration of configurations.

Your data confirmed what (I hoped) was the besto option for me, and gave me the information to confidently go through with ordering a set of Sanderson (coated) T-Bird headers.

Headers are a (relatively) significant investment, and your testing took virtually all of the guess-work out of it for me.

Todd.  Your headers look really good coated.   The set I was using for the tests were not yet coated and there’s some horsepower to be found in the coatings as well as a reduction in the underhood temperatures when those coatings are applied both internally and externally.  Be forewarned that those ceramic coatings do not like being superheated as happens when the car is simply sitting at an idle for extended periods of time.  Any kind of air movement under the hood will allow the coating to remain shiny much longer but any overheating of them will dull the finish.  Whenever I run coated headers on the dyno, I have fans sweeping air across them to preserve the shine.

While you probably have valid points from a pure power standpoint, there were a few key items that influenced my decision. I'm all but certain that the 312 in my 'Bird (upgraded with cam, big valves, intake, etc.) is by no means as stout as Ted's test engine.

With 2" or 2 1/4" exhaust, and the FOM transmission, the max HP and upper end is not nearly as important as torque. The cosmetic factor is also huge, given the amount of effort put into the under hood appearance. With the coating, (agree 100% with Ted's comments above) I believe the appearance and performance characteristics will be the best overall choice.

And Ted, that's just a Sanderson picture...mine haven't arrived yet. Probably next week. Once I finish everything on the LSR Uni' I'll be doing an ignition upgrage on the Caddy in my '60, then doing the (hopefully) final assembly under the hood on the 'Bird to get her going by the time fair weather arrives.

That is, if we (in CA) make it through the laughably apocalyptic snow dusting that the weather folks are predicting over the next couple of days

...yeah, for the Uni', and what you said above is actually the path being taken, just not by me. I believe the cage guy is attacking that, but that's another thread

           And guys, I follow this site a lot , even though i rarely respond, (guess that's obvious), As with everyone, a thank you for your time and efforts, and if i may, I have a question that i've not seen, heard of, read or been able to have answered. (that's not to say it isn't out there) But why are the header flanges shaped as per port design/shape, when round pipe is used? (obviously) That is to say, why not just round flanges for round pipe? When as often as not, the pipe is somewhat "re-shaped" to fit the flange anyway. This of course is irrespective of engine make. I can only assume that there is a very good reason for it, and although i do have a theory or two of my own, i'm unable to see it/them as viable all the same. My main reasoning is along the lines of the effect on the airflow, transitioning from port to pipe.

           Thanks for your thoughts and congrats on the EMC effort, "Outstanding"! I welcome any and all responses.

I bought a new kit but we will be using the flanges and some of the tubes from those, nothing goes to waste.

I might add that they are a lot like Teds EMC headers so I would think performance would be close. The new ones will have some interesting bends to get around the steering box and even the pass. side will have to be close to the same to even things out.

Scotty

From the book entitled

Scientific Design of Exhaust and Intake Systems-Philip H.Smith and John C.Morrison

"It may be considered that the slightly increased area at this point is of benefit in reducing pressure,particularly as there is often a sharp bend in the cast manifold bolted thereto."

Its due to the bends encountered being so close to the flange.

I also remember reading something on exhaust by Bill Jenkens.

It stated that since there is a high pressure charge being released thru the opening of the exhaust valve that there was turbulance in the flow.This resulted in possible contamination of the incoming charge due to the camshaft overlap sucking the spent charge back into the cylinder.

Basically the spent charge would creep up the outer edges inside the pipe.By keeping the flange at a greater opening than the pipe diameter the spent charge has a more difficult time getting back thru the exhaust valve.The spent charge is blocked by the actual head material exposed by the flange opening.

Oldmics

Old Mics has pretty touched on many of the points regarding why the ports in the headers or the manifolds are shaped like they are. I’ll add that if the heads are ported to the common rectangular shape, then a round port at the header flange can be obstructing part of the exhaust flow into the header. A rectangular port at the header will allow for the same cross-sectional surface area as a round port but will be a much better fit to the port at the head. On the stock exhaust ports at the heads, most are small enough that a round header port at the flange will not present any kind of obstruction so round ports can be found on the flanges of some of the older Y-Block header offerings simply due to the ease of manufacturing them. As far as the use of round tubing for headers goes, that’s what is readily available. Square tubing actually looks to have a flow advantage but is difficult for the average shop to perform the necessary mandrel bends to keep that flow advantage to the forefront. Hence, 99.9% of the headers you see use round tubing.

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The ported aluminum heads on the EMC project engine have a very rectangular or oblong exhaust port which fits up to a very similar shaped exhaust port on the headers. Flow restrictions at the header to head are thus minimized. General header design typically points to having an exhaust port at the header that’s slightly larger than the port at the head so that reversion pulses coming back up the header tube hits the head rather than going back into the cylinder. As the overlap cycle in a camshaft is increased, also is the propensity for some of the exhaust to be pulled back into the cylinder during that cycle. By maintaining a larger header port size than the port size at the exhaust exit at the head, some of the potential for dilution of the fresh intake charge going into the cylinder is minimized.

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Here’s a link to a past thread showing some different exhaust porting techniques which in turn requires appropriate header ports or flanges to match.

I appreciate all of the work you did on the different exhaust manifolds.  Great results!!

A couple of questions on my 60 ford 4x4 which now has single crossover exhaust to stock muffler coming out midway down the truck:

1.  Thinking of using ram horn or sanderson truck headers. Would you use 2 and 1/4  on ram horn and 2 and 1/2 pipes on Sanderson truck headers?

2.   I need to have some type of noise suppression  but would like to have minimal resistance to flow, would you recommend mufflers or something like a glass pack?

3. Also the exhaust comes out mid way down the truck.  Would you continue with the  route or go full length and exiting out the back? Do you recommend a certain length between manifold and muffler as well as tailpipe length?

Appreciate feedback from all

aussiebill (2/28/2011)

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Ted, i chuckle and think back as a kid when there was no technology except seat of the pants street tuneing coupled with youthfull exuberence and often ported my exhaust ports to 1 1/2" dia , figuring the ex valve was that dia, it then matched up to pipes good, but if the truth be known by todays testing etc would have made little difference? At least it seemed better? ha,ha.

Know what you mean.  I did the same but by the same token, it was equal footing for all back then.  In retrospect, that older stuff still ran good.  Most of the testing back then took place in the car and if you were lucky, on a drag strip with timers.

       Remember the motor is supercharged, so it needs all the help on the exhast side i can give it.That being said, the engine has been calculated to make 344 hp to the wheels through the mufflers. (2-1/2" flowmasters). It would be interesting to see what a good set of headers would do for it. Mummert and I tried a set or Yestertech headers on the Dyno. they were Roadster Headers, with very long primaries, I picked up 50 foot lbs of torque at 3000-3200, but very little top end horse power. But you can see the potential!  

Thank you for the reply on the Ram horn and muffler recommendation.  One thing you mentioned going from 2 inch on the manifold to 2.5 inch pipes.  I see on the test it said 2.25.  Would you recommend 2.5 or 2.25 pipes from the exhaust manifolds?  Appreciate the help.

Thanks for the reply about the ram horns and the pics to help explain it.  I am on the fence about ram horns or sanderson truck headers.  Like the look of the ram horns and clearance on my truck.

Here’s some more information that adds two more sets of headers to the list of those that have already been tested. These were also tested on the same engine combination as all the other exhaust systems which keeps comparisons equal.  Whereas only the best scores for each exhaust system were previously posted regardless of the number of configurations tested, here are the scores for each tested configuration for these two sets of headers.  The scores are still based on the overall performance in the 2300-5500 rpm range.

As in the previous tests, the mufflers continue to be appropriately sized based on the size of pipe that’s used in each test.  In the FPA header test chart below, there were three different pairs of mufflers being used.  The Ford Powertrain Applications (FPA) headers were unique in that the best numbers achieved were without any exhaust extensions being used and part of this could be attributed to the merge collector design being used at the ball shaped muffler connection at the end of the headers.  Many of the headers being tested did like some form of exhaust extension in which to improve their overall performance.

Crossover pipes were also tested and you can make your own assumptions based on the numbers.  Sometime in the near future, I’ll post the lower rpm band information which is where the crossover pipes appears to make the most difference when comparing the graphs.

Charlie.  Even with an expansion chamber, any restriction at the muffler would be seen at the engine and ultimately bring down the power numbers.  But once the restriction part is taken care of, an expansion chamber could be used to move the torque curve around.  The mufflers being a straight thru design over a chambered design are expected to show up as an advantage in this case.  The mufflers on the EMC headers are a straight thru design while all the other mufflers tested were the chambered design.

The crossover pipe being used in this particular test is the H design.  Here are a couple of pics of the crossover pipe that’s being used.

Here’s the graph comparing the open FPA headers without mufflers to the EMC headers with and without mufflers.  Because the horsepower is so similar on both, I’m displaying only the torque values which gives a better resolution.

                                            Thanks again, Scotty!

                    Thanks very much for your extra time in rehashing my question. that is much appreciated I assure you. Your answer is pretty much along the lines i had in mind also, but couldn't quite  rationalise it to myself. so again, thanks. Also, how did those heads ported to round exhausts perform on your tests? I had a bit of a search for it but didn't find it. As Aussie Bill said he had done that back in the day, so to had an Uncle of mine, though not on a Y-Block.

                    Hope all is well with you n yours, and another congrats on the EMC Project, fantastic result!

                                                                                                                                        yours Scotty!

                    Reasonably impressive wouldn't you say Though well up there in rev range, and I would assume to though, that all these headers had the square port flanges still wouldn't they, and if so, surely none would have been large enuff to uncover/restrict, the ports?

The fenderwell headers were the only set of headers of the three sets used in the round port head test that actually had round ports at the header flanges.  The round ported heads themselves were actually ported back in their day to match up to this particular set of headers.  The EMC and Sanderson headers have rectangular ports that were actually smaller than the ports at the heads and as a result, both sets had some flow obstructions taking place as a result of the mismatch at the heads.  But to look at the torque graph, the EMC headers outshined the other two sets of headers in the lower rpm band regardless of the port mismatch.

But as usual, there’s much more happening here than just a head to header flange port mismatch. The large dip in torque seen with the fenderwell headers has since been attributed to the collector size on that particular set of headers as being way too large.  Had this been recognized at the time of the round port head test, the fenderwell headers would have performed much better with downsized collectors.

Since doing that particular cylinder head test, the fenderwell headers have been tested again with a different set of heads on the engine but also with collector extensions that brought the collector sizes down from 4” to 3”.  With that change, much of the pronounced dip that was evident with the 4” collectors was removed from the lower rpm band of the curve.  Here’s the torque graph where the round ported fenderwell headers were tested on the mildly ported G heads that have rectangular exhaust ports.

Gary R. (site member) had very recently shipped to me the latest Reds header offering for the ‘55/56 car chassis.  This new header is a four tube header design feeding into a very short 2½” collector.  Overall it’s still a shorty header but fares much better than the older two tube version that was tested.  Scoring is still calculated starting at 2300 rpms and ending at 5500 rpms.  I’ll add that this is also the best scoring chassis header that is designed to fit into the mid-fifties Ford cars.  All the other headers that outscored this particular set are either race car or dyno specific.  Here are the detailed results for this particular header. 

And here is the revised chart showing the ‘best’ score for each exhaust system tested thus far. Keep in mind that the best score does not necessarily produce the best peak horsepower or peak torque values.

Charlie.  You’re on the right track with that train of thought.  What I’m finding is that the collector size itself as a general rule likes to merge down significantly and then expand back out to a larger size.  For the dyno mule, the collector being necked down to 2.5” or thereabouts while the extension behind is larger.  That larger section acts as an expansion chamber and helps to dampen some of the reverse pulsing that is trying to take place.  Then using larger pipes behind this must be used to insure that the flow to the end of the exhaust is not being inhibited.  This has been supported by the fact that the better test values always come about with the larger sized pipes being used.

There are some real opportunities to be had in using high flow mufflers also.  Many of the chambered mufflers that have been used thus far in the testing have been a detriment to overall performance.  At this point, I suspect that the EMC headers could stand some additional downsizing on the merge collector.  Right now it’s at 3” and at the time of testing on the EMC Y engine, that was the smallest merge collector on hand.  In fact, Geoff Mummert supplied the one that’s in the headers now.  I’ll also add that Jerry Christenson and Royce Brechler provided the original EMC headers which have only since been modified in the collector area.

Ted, did you post the lower RPM results for these test? I have a 64 F100 and would like to update the exhaust to maximize lower torque.

See if this set of graphs helps. This info actually indicates that it may be better in this particular instance to not use the crossover pipes in the exhaust on an engine that's simply running at the lower rpm band most of the time. My own experience with crossover pipes on daily drivers is that they do mellow out the exhaust notes on a V8 and stop some of the ‘popping’ noises that can occur out of the end of the pipes while cruising.

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While a normal thought process might indicate that the smaller sized pipes would enhance lowend torque production, dyno testing that was performed on a Y engine with the different sized pipes indicates otherwise. Here are the graphs showing HP & TQ attributes with the different sized tail pipes installed on the 322” dyno mule.

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A comment came up in another thread suggesting that the single exhaust crossover pipe system actually made better low-end torque than duals. Data from dyno testing does suggest otherwise. Here’s the graph displaying the torque values for the factory dual exhaust manifolds versus the single exhaust crossover system.