been running the ta headers on my 65 skylark for 8 years, almost done putting the GS club headers on the twin car. the bad on both they angle down, can really see the collectors angled down, don't know why they have to make them like that. had to bend both sets up, got about 1/2 inch on some to 3/4 on others, and cant use the stock oil filter and stock starter is really a tight fit but Tom's mini starters will cure that.. the plus for ta's the head flange and the collector flange are both a little thicker, the longer header 1 inch bolts will work on the ta's but not the club headers. ta's have 3 inch collectors the club headers only 2.5 inch. the plus on the club one's nothing really, maybe gain 1/4 inch of ground clearance because of the smaller collector, but i had to buy different collector adapters cause the ones that came with them narrowed down to 2 inch. the guy at the GS club said if i recall the headers were tooled from the old hooker headers. not sure on ta's maybe the old kustom headers?
I was wrong on the TA's headers there not the old kustom ones, they are there own design made by a private source.
Think they would have made them correct to begin with knowing the problems with any of the original designs.
they did make the thicker flanges and longer bolts. the big thing would have been to get them up higher. got the club headers on now and there no higher then the TA's. they were angled down, had to bend them up, got about 3/4 inch higher. dont think theres anything they could do for the oil filter.
Both of mine are the older TA’s, the newer ones are improved. They don’t have a ton of clearance but I’ve never scraped them either.
Could you guys email pictures to me at taperf@aol.com? Put "ATTN: Michael Jr" in the subject line. I'll look into seeing if we can improve them. Thanks.
Also, when you say you have to take the headers off to change the oil filter, is that using the original large style paper element oil filter, or the later model, modern oil filters?
With my Kustom headers, I can just barely get the oil filter out if I remove the transmission converter cover..... it's a squeeze between the flexplate and header. Ground clearance is poor as well. It wasn't too bad with the taller G-70-15 tires, but the 235/60's put the headers closer to the ground. I'm planning on doing a pie cut in the collector to at least get it parallel to the ground instead of angling down. I'll try to get some pics posted for you Mike.
Walt no need to pie cut. just a jack and a small block of wood, i did it with the ta and the club headers, leave the exhaust pipes bolted on. my collectors are now parallel
My collectors have ok ground clearance but could use more. but are parallel to the ground. It also doesnt matter which oil filter I use, it still wont come off without pulling the headers. Jim (Ponch)
you still can get the header tubes up by jacking it up. 51045 wix oil filter will work it's slimmer then stock one, holds about 1/3 less oil then the big 1 quart stock filter.
I posted this a few years back but nobody wants to believe this. look up Beyea custom headers, they specialist and make custom headers and exhaust world wide, there in Genoa NY. there products are in jegs and summit racing. brought my car in there with the ta headers on, wanted an x-pipe on. the headers were very low. he came out with a jack and started to put it under the header, i asked him what the heck he was doing and he said he was going to get the headers up and not to worry. sure enough one side up almost 3/4 inch and the other side [drivers side]over an inch. he got most of it up from the tubes on the ta headers, since the collectors on them are almost even, but the ones on my GSCA headers were really angled down before i did them my self this time. they moved up mostly on the collectors but on the tubes too.
