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Home made headers
miraclepieco:
Hotwheels got me inspired by building a set of Lakes headers for his current project. He accomplished it so quickly that it made it seem pretty feasible. Plus it can be done at home without the time and expense of a trip to the exhaust shop.
The Scrap Rod exhaust runs under the frame back to the stacks. Since lowering the rear of the truck two more inches, the head pipes are now the lowest point on the car and in grave peril of being destroyed. So I decided that, instead of routing the pipes under the truck, I would keep them on top where they'd be less vulnerable. This essentially necessitates a whole new exhaust system.
The Scrap Rod was a simple build, intentionally that way to combat the ridiculous complexity, perfection and expense that I'd watched street rodding turn into. So I didn't want to make an elaborate set of headers; I wanted to keep them pretty utilitarian. But I also wanted a unique set, like no one else's. So I devised a design that is both simple yet different. You might call it stupid and ugly :P but here is the project step by step:
First, I made the 45-minute trip into town and had a muffler shop bend up eight 1 1/2" 90-degree elbows. Sure they're crush bends and not mandrel bent - boo hoo, I didn't want them to be in any way like a street rod or a HAMB-mobile so I think that's COOL! They even have number stamping all over them - GOOD! And they're plain steel, not stainless - GREAT! All the more ratty!!!!!
I could've cut head flanges myself, but geez that's a lot of work with an angle grinder, so I simply bought some from Bob's Rat Rod Parts just up the road from me in Salem, Oregon. He also has an Ebay store and his stuff is top quality.
By the time I was done with all these preliminaries (including removing my old exhaust), all I had time to do was cut the primaries to length and tack them to the flanges. Like everything else on the Scrap Rod, spacing was mostly eyeballed. A wise pro builder once told me, "If it LOOKS right, it IS right!" Tomorrow I will weld them up and start working on the collector. That's where this set will be different - kind of a low-mount lakes header.
All the materials for this project totaled $88. Here's pics of about two hour's progress, including my preliminary sketches.
Dustin Arnett:
Sweet!! I'm looking forward to the end result
~Dustin
Greybeards Customs:
that looks good , the way you have the pipes turned down you don't even see the crush bends . The cost of the parts is cheap enough to go ahead and build me a set ;)
hotwheels:
Great job man.......can't wait to see the completed project. Great price too, 88 bucks plus your time......that equals priceless.
obama:
Way to go, keep us posted.
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