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Flowtech
Equal Length Longtube Headers |
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By Jarrad Myers Vehicle: 1986 Mustang Hatchback, 302/AOD/carbed |
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I
bought a set of Flowtech equal length longtube headers from Jeg’s for
$104 plus shipping. When I
opened the box and looked at the headers, I knew I was in for more than I
had bargained for. The
drivers side looked easy enough, there was one slip tube for the rear
cylinder. The instructions say to jack the car up 3 feet in the air to
install these headers, and they are not kidding. The instructions also
state that you should replace your motor mounts before installing them, I
did not and now I regret that decision, because it cost me hours of
headaches, more on that later. I started by sawing through the flange where they had notched
it from the factory. The slip
tube has to go around the steering link and in-between the K-frame and
block. Well with my motor
mounts being worn out, it took 20 minutes to snake the tube around and
past everything (the brake booster really gets in the way).
Then I jacked the car up, way up, and took another 40 minutes to
shove the rest of the header between the block and frame. This takes two
people, one to guide the top and one to shove the slip tube into the
collector from the bottom. Afterwards you just line up the flange and bolt
it to the head, easier said than done. While tightening the bolts that are
impossible to get a box end on, the open end of the wrench spread and
slipped off busting knuckles and causing lots of foul words to be thrown
around. Total time for the
drivers side install 1.5 hours.
Now for the fun part, the passenger side. Here again I started by
sawing through the flange for the slip tubes.
Only this one has three slip tubes and only one is permanently
attached to the collector. The
tubes for cylinder #3 and #4 need to go at the front of the starter,
between the starter and K-frame. I
maneuvered the #4 tube into place around the front of the starter, then
the #3 tube needs to also go around the front of the starter on the
outside of tube #4. This took
45 minutes as there was almost no clearance there, then I jacked up the
car 3 feet again and tried to slip the #1 tube and collector into place.
No go, it was getting wedged in-between the starter and frame.
After spending 2 hours trying everyway I could to get it in there, I gave
up and ordered solid motor mounts from Blue Oval Industries.
One week later I get the mounts and install them.
I could not believe how well they fit, but they bolted right on.
So back to installing the #1 tube and collector, I shoved it into
place and came up short an inch from the flange touching the head and the
tubes slipping into place. After studying the problem for awhile, I realized the problem
was the starter was interfering with the header.
The starter was stock for a ’86 model so I ordered up one from a
’92 Mustang that is a mini starter.
The min starter is a whole lot smaller around and an inch shorter.
It bolted right in (with a few longer bolts) and immediately there
was plenty of room. So I put
the #1 tube into place slipped #3 and #4 into place.
The #2 tube drops into place from the top.
Again I started running the bolts in and found that the #4 tube was
a little out of whack, a few pry bars and about 30 minutes I had the
header bolted into place. I
have now been messing with this car for about two weeks and all I wanted
to do was crank it up and drive it around the block to annoy the
neighbors. I jumped in the car fired it up and it sounded bad ass, after a
few revs to get everyone’s attention I reached for the gearshift and
tried to shift it out of park. Well it wouldn’t shift, so I shut the car down and crawled
underneath it. I found the
linkage was hitting the collector flange, after many more foul words and
scratching my head trying to figure out what to do, I ended up tacking the
flange in place and grinding a notch into it for clearance. The major things I learned from this episode is that you do not try to save a few bucks when it comes to your car, it ends up costing way more than you expected. Also when the directions say replace motor mounts, DO IT!
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