The Supercar Registry - M/T Super Scavenger headers

For those who may foolishly wish to make their own (for a 1st gen Camaro), here's what I did. Since this was an experiment, I wanted to use some fairly generic and inexpensive long tube headers as my starting point.

Short story: Hedman street headers, #65003.

Long version below (in case someone is considering buying a set of these Hedman headers):

Originally I wanted 1 5/8“ primary tubes with 3” collectors for my car, but ended up choosing 1.75” primary tubes instead. Not sure why I did that, but I wouldn’t go that direction again (at least not for my modification project).

Depending on whose ad you are reading, the Hedman cylinder head ports are described as square, round, oval or SAP (same as port). None of those are really accurate. The header ports are basically rectangles with rounded corners, and do not match the stock head ports. The gaskets supplied with the headers match the headers exactly and would give you only a fraction of an inch of gasket material at the top and bottom of each cylinder - perfect for blowing out. I chose to use some deluxe gaskets that matched the oem ports, which provided gasket sealing surfaces that matched the head ports and covered the header ports nicely as well. So far, so good.

Passenger side header: Perfect fit right out of the box. Can be installed from the top or the bottom without removing the oem starter. No clearance issues on OEM plug wires and boots. Plenty of clearance around the starter. Lines up nicely with the raised portion of the crossmember. Hedman did a great job on one side…

Drivers side: Not so lucky - as was expected. FYI - You will need to jack up the drivers side of the engine for installation.

The #1 cylinder pipe hits the P/S box heavily (taped section of my photo). Even crushing it in with a sledgehammer would not have provided enough clearance. I cut the #1 pipe off and rerouted it (similar to the original M/T design) by using some mandrel bent pieces from Hedman. That portion now fits perfect with no clearance issues at all (oil filter, clutch linkage, dipstick tube, etc.). Hedman should just make them that way.

The #3 and #5 plug wire boots (regardless of boot shape used, and even if you used shorty plugs) rest directly against the header tubes. I did some basic rounded dimpling on the sides of the tubes and now have decent clearance. Hedman could have done that simple detail as well.

The collector does not line up with the raised portion of the crossmember. It is about 1” from the frame rail. This was probably done to avoid the oil filter. Works OK but is not symmetrical to the passenger side (but maybe that only bugs me).

I created the collectors using some 4” exhaust pipe and some 4” to 3” reducers, along with the Hedman 3 bolt flanges. I wanted to use round flanges like M/T did, but evidently they are not very common anymore and I gave up that concept. Then I crudely used my hydraulic press and some flat pieces of steel to crush the collectors into a square-ish shape. Not as pretty as a professional would do, but not too bad of a result.

Cut off the Hedman collectors leaving the primary tubes as long as possible and welded diamond pieces in the center and triangles on the outside. Using the longest tube from both sides for a measurement (which of course was my rerouted #1 pipe), I determined what pieces were needed to make all the tubes the same length. Here’s where the primary tube size came into play. The outside dimensions of the newly reshaped 4” collector matched the four 1.75” primary tubes exactly. My original plan was to extend the primary tubes as needed by butt-welding pieces onto them, but this discovery made me use 1 5/8” tube extensions partially inserted into and welded to the Hedman primaries. Wasn’t worried about the reduction in flow for my experiment, but next time I would buy the correct size primary tubes to start with. Then the new collectors slid over the extensions and the whole arrangement was welded.

That’s it in a nutshell. REALLY wish I saw that set of Super Scavengers on Ebay while I was searching. Definitely would have paid that price. Now back to Happy Hour…. Charlie

Taped section shows P/S box interference area.
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...terference.jpg

Nice fit on passenger side.
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...side_below.jpg

https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...r_side_eng.jpg

Squished areas indicate stock ports.
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...hed_gasket.jpg

Hedman gasket laying over other gasket. You can see where the thin areas would be a problem.
https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/pics...man_gasket.jpg