Hey Small Block Shell Valley Guys....
 

Two questions for y'all.....

1. Do your sidepipes look the very same on each side of the car? Or does one sit a little lower?

2. How much clearance do you have between your headers and your footboxes? Are they like 2" away.....or more like 1/2" away?

Hey blykins,

My drivers side hang a little lower than the passenger side. I'm still tweaking the headers a bit though.

My headers are about a 1/2" or less away from the footboxes.


Sydney

Mine look different. The passenger side hangs lower. Both need adjustment when I get the time. The headers are pretty well centered in the body cutout and pretty well centered between the footbox and the inner fender glass, though.

When they're hot from engine heat, they can be influenced a little bit with a floor jack or a bar. For moving them very much, though, a torch is needed, and it's tough to keep all 4 pipes hot enough at once to do what you need.

Alright....thanks for your answers guys....still struggling a little with getting my sidepipes perfect. Dana and I have been trying different things....

So far, I'm still having the same problem with the driver's side header being further away from the cutout than the pass side.

The Shell guys have been really awesome about modifying headers and sending me different ones. You really couldn't ask for anything more from them.

Syd....have you tried swapping your headers? Dana told me that they should be at least a couple inches from the footboxes....Kinda like Dirty Harry said....they're about centered.

I sent my headers to Dana and he put them in their jig....and the pipes lined up fine. So I'm sure I'm doing something wrong, but just can't figure it out. We're both stumped.

So far I've checked to make sure the body is perfectly centered on the frame. It is. The engine is centered in the mounts of course, and the engine mounts are oriented correctly.

Dana suggested I swap headers and try...but the headers hit the footboxes...so I know they're not right that way. And the other way where they fit, there's about a 1.5-2" gap.

I did some measuring and found out that the driver's side sidepipe opening in the body is about 1-3/8" further from the frame rail than on the pass side. I emailed Dana and he doubled checked his cars....same measurement.

We've also tried to see if the engine was perfectly level in the car...it is.

We're still at a loss for why it doesn't match the other side. But it's enough of a difference that I can't live with it. I know you can't see both sides at once, but I'm an anal perfectionist.

I unbolted the header from the head and then kept it still in the engine bay....then slid the sidepipe up on it and held it up to where it matched the other side. I had my dad measure the difference, and it was about 1-3/8".....so I'm just gonna see if Dana can send me a short joint of the header tube stuff....and I'm just gonna cut the header and splice it in.

I'd have to say I have about the same as Syd.

Mine are about 1/2" at the furthest, but they are both close.

Whoops!

I kept staring at the one corner of my footbox where one header pipe clearance is a little tight.

Where the pipes exit the cutouts, I have about 1 1/4" clearance to the footbox. But I have thermal insulation and aluminum trim covering the footboxes so my clearance is probably 3/8" or so less. Both headers are fairly well centered between the footbox and the fenderwell.

Sydney