Sanderson Headers for my 63 Riviera

Tom T built one for the fastest nailhead powered A body, normally aspirated, drag cars perhaps out there. I defer to him but I think it is in the 550 hp range. They did not do this overnight.

On a 63 you also have a Dynaslow transmission to address.

 

Thank you. 550 hp is dang impressive for any engine! I appreciate your response and I will message him. Yes, the Dynaflow is going by the wayside, I have a 200-4R out of my brother's GN for it.

Lucas

 

I recall the car runs about 11 flat in a quarter, but Tom is the man to ask.

 

One of the 1st. things you need to understand. Most of our Buick cars are pretty much on the heavy side. My '64 Riv. is quite a bit over 4K pds. This is a bare bones stripped '64 I bought new when I was 18. Only option was "Posi". Without A/C it has better weight distribution than Corvettes of '63-'67 with 52% front & 48% rear. So they CAN be made to handle fairly well also for there size. What you need is LOW END TORQUE to get these heavy sleds to start moving. The MOST FUN driving these cars is the surprise on others faces when this big load can pull them out of the hole/light-light. Stock "Nail" manifolds flow pretty well for stock cast iron manifolds. Some gains can be made by enlarging the outlets diameter. I'll say it again, IT'S ALL ABOUT LOW END TORQUE. You don't need 8000RPM's light-light. No matter what you do to a "Nail" it is almost ALWAYS a 100HP short of the exact same thing done to other engines. This all has to do with the breathing potential thru the heads, manifolds & carbs. BUT, you have to be careful on how much breathing you add because it ALL takes away from LOW END TORQUE.
Just my thoughts.


Tom T.

 

Thanks, Tom. Torque is definitely king and what you feel on the "butt dyno", most people don't realize that.....I promise I wasn't trying to be condescending or anything with my questions. I am planning on gearing down to 4:11s, which is why I'm going with the overdrive, get that low end going but still be decent down the highway. If you look at the dyno numbers on my Ford I posted, you can see I'm more into torque than hp, I could've very easily built it the other way around. But it's a street car and I put 5000 miles or so on it every summer. This Riv is kind of a combo of my Mach 1 and Coupe Deville for me, my "do everything ok, but nothing spectacular" car. Well, other than looks haha. I'm just looking to build around 375 hp or a bit more and was thinking a true 450 ft.-lbs. and was curious if I was going need headers to get there or not ....

 

Aluminum pipe, or aluminized steel? I'd expect aluminized steel. That's just mild-steel exhaust tubing with an aluminum coating on it to slow the rust. It burns off at the welds.

Damned shame you ended up with crush-bent tubing. There goes your mid- to upper-rpm power.

 

Yes, correct, aluminized steel.

 

72mach1, my reply wasn't intended to be condescending towards your engine knowledge, there's a gap in communication.

Headers work off of the lengths and diameters of the pipes and how they math up to the cylinders... influencing the sonic-tuned scavenging that pulls on the intake tract beginning at the overlap events within a calculated rpm range.
Understanding that longer tubes bring the rpm range lower and larger diameter handles more volume at a specific velocity, one could 'look' at a header or manifold and have a pretty good idea of what range it helps in or what differences over stock it 'might' have.

Basically you can aim the influence of the header to the powerband with your header selection, balanced with your cam's overlap and mass flow calcs and understand where the limitations of the engine already lie. The power potential and rpm range is nearly solely determined by the head's characteristics.

Dyno testing isn't often done in a range where a long tube header would show it's benefits, well below peak torque and with little difference up top as the heads are very restricted.
Short tube headers being closer to the lengths of a branched manifold would suggest a similar outcome, which as no surprise...has been observed.

There's plenty of cases where a really high powered engine doesn't lose so much to a manifold. That would suggest that between the heads and the cam, adequate scavenging is already happening or the header tested itself doesn't have optimized dimensions for the specific combination.

 

Hey, no worries. It's difficult to tell what someone's tone is when we're all just typing back and forth, and I am new to this forum haha.....To the original poster, sorry for hijacking your thread, but I've got the info I needed now. Thanks for all the replies and help guys. Looking forward to being a member on this forum and hopefully can help with the little bit I know when needed

Lucas

 

port matching the stock manifolds works well.... and then some big pipes/mufflers behind them will work as good as headers.... it has been my experience that a nail responds to the doc dual plane mod, a opened up/ cold air intake air cleaner, KEEPING THE HEAT IN THE MANIFOLD UNDER THE CARB,,,, port matching everything... and smoothing up the head ports on both sides.... a good cam.... all the stuff that is in my list of cheap tricks.... AND A BIG CARB.... ONE CARB... :laugh: PLUS enough gear out back,,, I used a switch pitch th400 and 4:11 posi.... worked like a charm....

 

I'll second Doc's comment about keeping the heat in the manifold. I threaded the holes and plugged them. I was wondering why Doc said what he did about the heat until summer was over. The doggone thing simply wouldn't run cold. I restored the heat - albeit with a bit of restriction, and all is well.

 

Yeppppp.... it does sound crazy , but what is most responsive on the street is cold air coming into the carb and enough heat in the intake manifold to make the fuel ''flash off '' the sides of the manifold runners.... you cannot make liquid fuel burn, it has to vaporize to burn.... :idea2::laugh:

 

Hello Folks,
You know I find the mfg of performance parts for our Buick's a hit and miss, which the hit changes to a miss and back through the years. When we first released the shorty headers for the Nailhead we would receive calls of happiness from our customers. Some saying that the headers were the single most noticeable improvement in power they had added to there combination. Then here today there worthless unless you needed to replace your cracked exhaust manifolds. I have been doing this for a long time now and can't remember when a header hasn't helped when upgrading from stock. I have seen on race engines certain headers performing better than others. Now most when installing headers are replacing there exhaust as well. Maybe the responses we received were because they might have installed a 2.250" or 2.5" system. Not sure anymore, what I do know is some spent the dime to to give us feed back. Normally we only hear the bad not the good. There are a fair amount that take the time to share there happiness which is what makes me come into work the next day.

 

in my thread on small block. put shorty headers on the 340 buick with a mild to med built. could feel the difference in mid to upper rpms. 20 hp for sure. bottom end maybe a hair. the sound of exhaust was a lot nicer. long tube headers would have helped with bottom end too, but they dont make them.

 

If a fellow is welding together his own pipes, it's really easy to make a set of short headers longer. Definitely worth it.

 

It's always good to feel appreciated and what you've done was well received.

I for one appreciate everything you've done for the Buick community, Mike. You've always been courteous in your responses to my inquiries and others I've read about here on the forums have said the same.

Where would the Buick community be without TA Performance or v8Buick.com???

/salute

 

You know I don't really come here to the nailhead section very often, but sometimes out of curiosity. It's amazing to see the difference in opinions on how things work, and based on experience can differ widely from combination to combination.

...but what I find most interesting is how much of the design philosophies found here in this section of v8buick reflects much of what I've tried to 'preach' in the past in the sbb section, with little positive reception.

Perhaps I've been in the wrong forum all this time? lol

Ah well. It's all fun to me, and I love reading about all the experiences and comments from other Buick enthusiasts.

 

Well Gary , start a new thread and let's see what your thinking. Less happing here in the nailhead section than the sbb section. Most of us are always looking for new ideas for the old nailhead

 

As tempting as this may be, I'll probably just remain a spectator for a while at least.

I've never owned a Nailhead, so my input would be less valuable on something I have no experience with.

I always thought they were very handsome engines though, and I am familiar with the design and engineering intent, but never actually put my hands on one.

My ideas for the Buick 350 was to try and maximize low-mid range grunt, so there is at least a common theme. This makes the Nailhead appealing to me. I always said if I ever got one, it would be the 401 or the 364, with the former being easier to obtain parts for, if I recall?

They're not exactly growing on trees anymore though, are they?

I'm a fabricator by trade (restorations, etc.), so maybe those ideas might help here and there? We'll see.

 

That doesn't sound crazy at all.

A quickie question for ya, Doc...from what I've seen on the intake runner design for the Nailhead, it seems more square than tall and narrow like other Buick designs.

What are your thoughts on the reasoning behind this design? I would think that keeping the intake hotter would indeed help with fuel vaporization with such a runner design, as long as the carb had enough insulation between itself and the manifold and there was a nice cold air supply to feed the carb.

Has anyone ever thought about splitting the runner in half, making two tall and narrow runners that fed the same head port? It would require creating a new intake, of course.

Just wondering.