While there have been some well-designed headers for the early ‘Birds, decent power producing headers for the Y powered Mid-Fifties cars have been hard to come by and when actually made, are only made in limited quantities.  Here are pictures of the recently made prototype Reds Headers for the mid-Fifties Ford cars that were dyno tested on the 312 dyno mule.  These are not to be confused with the earlier two tube Reds Headers that have been out there for several years and did not make any more power than stock cast iron manifolds.

This particular set of headers made excellent power compared to many of the other headers and exhaust systems that have been tested on this engine.  The dyno mule with a set of stock cast iron manifolds (square tops) made a best of 279 HP while these new headers were worth an additional 28 HP.  These new headers were within 2 HP of the headers I used on the EMC dyno competition entries so they are extremely good when considering the fine tuning that went into the design of the EMC headers.  No word yet as to when these headers will actually be in production to the point of the average person can get hold of a set.  If enough calls are made to Reds, then there’s a chance that the production of these headers can be pushed to the forefront.

Here’s the link to the article previously published in The Y-Block Magazine showing the HP & TQ numbers for the various exhaust manifolds and headers on the Ford Y.
Ford Y-Block Exhaust Testing – Eaton Balancing
   

  

  

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

This is good news. I have been searching for a set of long tube headers for quite some time but ended up going with the shorter RexHP units. A couple years back I had contacted John Mummert about the tri-Y set that Jerry Jardine had made for mid-50's Fords. John told me that he was trying to locate local welders that would weld up a number of sets for him to sell to guys like us. I do not know how many others contacted John - probably not enough to warrant the effort. 

My build is on hold for the time being out here in California, but I would certainly like to get a set of these to put behind the new engine since it will have John's S-934 grind and some other goodies.

Daniel Jessup

Lancaster, California

aka "The Hot Rod Reverend"
check out the 1955 Ford Fairlane build at www.hotrodreverend.com

Can you/we test them on a bit more powerful engine next week?  I have two ready for the dyno.  Joe-JDC

JDC

Is Reds taking the automatic shifter in their design? I'm sure they worked around the clutch Z bar but I'd like to see them consider the column automatic folks.



Y's guys rule!
Looking for McCullouch VS57 brackets and parts. Also looking for 28 Chrysler series 72 parts. And early Hemi parts.

MoonShadow, 292 w/McCulloch, 28 Chrysler Roadster, 354 Hemi)
Manchester, New Hampshire

That set of headers has already been returned to the customer.  Pretty sure that those headers would also work well if not even better on a more modified engine.  The dyno mule is a no frills +060 over 312 with stock G heads, a Seventies era Crower Monarch camshaft, unmodified Mummert intake, and a 750 Holley carb.  When the original damper failed during dyno testing, it was replaced with an Innovators West damper that was already sitting here.


A call would need to be made to Reds to clarify exactly what chassis was used to fab up these headers.  In looking at the design of the headers in the steering column area, shifter rods would be an issue.

A header design that is both effective and works with the column shift linkage still in place is difficult in those cars that are not already heavily modified in the suspension department.  The left side of the stock engine bay is already a challenge when working the header tubes around the steering box, clutch linkage and the oil filter.  Any shifter linkage coming off of the steering column just adds an additional complication which forces the routing of the header tubes to be significantly compromised in regards to evacuation of the exhaust flow.  The column shift linkage can be considered to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camels’ back in this case.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)