Here are some pics of the various exhaust manfolds and headers that were used in the test.  I’ve posted them in the same order as they are on the chart.  The exception to this are the Sanderson Thunderbird headers which are only pictured once but were tested with several sizes of exhaust pipes.  The Sanderson headers for both the pickups and the Thunderbirds are still available to the best of my knowledge.  The Sanderson TBird headers that Mark loaned to me for the test were brand new and never used.  Thanks again Mark for letting me break them in for you; those headers shipped back out Monday to you.

 Single exhaust with crossover pipe

 1955/56 Dual Exhaust manifolds

 Reds two tube headers

 1957 Dual Exhaust manifolds

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

More pics

 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

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

More pics

 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

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

More pics

  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

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Good grief Ted! You must be exhausted!! It's very interesting  to see what actually works and what turns out to be "old Wives tales."  Red's headers look like a copy of my Hedmans, and everbody said they didn't work. Guess everbody knew what he was talking about.......for this time, anyway.

Frank/Rebop

Bristol, In ( by Elkhart) 

Ted

 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.

Gary Ryan San Antonio.TX.

Ted, If your not too tired of answering foolish questions then I have one more. I have always heard that try-Ys produced more torque at lower RPM than conventional Hedders. And therefore were better for street driving in a car with an automatic. Did your test show this to be a fact or just another urban myth. Enquiring minds want to know. Thanks Pete

Gary.  The listed score on the chart represents the best score of the various configurations for a particular exhaust system that was tested.  In the case of the Sanderson Thunderbird headers there were eleven different configurations tested.  Four with 2” dia exhaust pipes, four with 2¼“ dia exhaust pipes, and three configurations tested with 2½“ exhaust pipes.  In this particular exhaust test the Sanderson Thunderbird headers were not run directly out of the end of the header collectors simply because that scenario would not be seen in the real world.  Because of the testing with the three different diameter lead pipes, the Sanderson TBird headers are listed as three separate categories on the chart.   This allowed the best score for each size of pipe to be displayed.  Going back through the data, here’s a chart showing the torque curves for the Sanderson headers with 2¼“ lead pipes of varying lengths.  You just gotta love graphs as they give a very good overview visually that just cannot be achieved when using charts but by the same token, the graphs can get very busy quickly.

 

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

Pete. Here’s the graph showing the torque curves for the firing order specific Tri-Y headers as tested in some of the various configurations. Although I didn’t overlay the graphs, you can look at the previous graph and see where the Sanderson Thunderbird headers start out at a higher torque value at the lowend of the test range than the TriY headers. I had tested the Tri-Y’s in the past without any collectors or exhaust and they were down significantly on peak torque numbers but playing with different length pipes behind any of the systems tested changed up the torque curves quite a bit. The TriY headers with the right length pipes did okay but I wouldn’t say they were leaps and bounds better than anything else tested. Score wise, they were still slightly less than both the Sanderson Thunderbird and Sanderson pickup headers with all else being equal.

Here’s a link to a previous test where the TriY headers were tested without pipes or mufflers and compared to the Reds Headers and the EMC headers on another engine.

http://forums.y-blocksforever.com/Topic51444-3-1.aspx

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)

From what I've read, I don't think tri-y's are exactly a myth, but they also aren't exactly a truth. What it boils down to is if the person designing and building them knows what he is doing, they will provide the desired result... but the same can be said of 4 into 1s. Either way you go, with the proper design, it can outshine everything else on the market.


Lawrenceville, GA