Best headers for a small block chevy??

Question

Hey, I have a 68 Malibu with the orig 327 that i had rebuilt and an RV cam put in. I put in a forged rebuild kit including pistons. I currently have a 4 barrel Edelbrock carb w/ a 1/2" spacer up from a edelbrock performer manifold. I am eventually panning on getting a set of aluminum heads but dont have the $$ right now. I have found out i have an exahust leak and am going to have a daul exhaust put back on with the Magnaflow mufflers i bought it with. my questions is since i plan on getting a set of edelbrock alum heads, what size exaust diameter and what brand of shorty headers would work best for my set up?? also should i get a new torque convertor? all my gears are good in my tranny put when i punch the gas it loses power!! could this be the tranny?? thanks in advance!!

Answer 1

i own a repair shop,and the RV cam you have in it is a low rpm cam ,and it may be causing the lack of acceleration in it some,and also the exhaust can cause a lot of this,hooker has the best set of headers for it,get the ones called the performer series ,their the best for what your doing,that cam you have is good from 0-60 at the most,its not set up for higher rpm gains at all,so don't expect a lot from it past 55- 65 mph,its a good low end cam though ,id also try and see if i had a good spark on it you may be lacking enough fire to actually burn the gas your putting in to it,usually a hesitation is caused from a lack of gas, or too much entering at one time ,this something you might want to look in to,and play with the timing some also,this can be retarded to much and cause that also,good luck ,i hope this help,s.

Answer 2

Lets attack the power loss first. Automatic trans. motors do not like carb. spacers, open plenum intakes (I realize yours still has the divider) and a standard torque converter. I had a 1965 4 speed Chevelle with the 350 hp. 327 and stupidly machined out the center divider in the stock aluminum intake manifold. The car never sound like it was idling correctly and the bottom end became soft till it got to 2,000 rpm. Keep your set - up and try it without the spacer. Nowadays heads with small intake runners (170 - 180) are working better than (200 - 230) for street use. I wish I knew what your piston tops look like - flat I hope. A month ago I stood between two drag racing engine builders and they point blank said: You get better flame travel using flat pistons with small combustion chamber cylinder heads cut to 23 degrees. The old double hump heads had 64 cc chambers and with flat top pistons yielded 10 - 1 compression ratio. In today's world any of the stock Vortec heads make torque and power right out of the box. Before you make a jump with your cylinder heads within a month at your local Chevy parts counter they'll have the 2007 Performance Parts Catalog. In there you'll find a minimum of 15 combination to choose from. For $5.00 they're gold. As for headers you need to keep the velocity up. Small 1 1/2 - 1 5/8 primaries with long equal length pipes dropping to small 3 1/2 collectors work pretty good.

Answer 3

probly flooding when you punch it. sounds like this motor needs duel exhuast if your running anything over a 500 cfm carb. My advice with the headers is get some dirt cheap ones from pick and pull if you have to. dont buy really fancy shorties if your planning to put allum. heads in just wait untill you get the heads then buy the fancy shorties. Ive picked up a set of rusty headers for 25 bucks at a pick and pull that worked fine for a year on a 305 before I upgraded.

Answer 4

For headers I would go with some shortys..... hedman and hooker make good headers..... check them out on the net...... I would go with a bigger size, like the 1 5/8, here is a pair of summitt block hugger shortys...

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=SUM%2DG9060&N=700+115&autoview=sku

Answer 5

hooker super comp