Header [Blank Post]

[1972ho]

It might be a mock up but it sure seems really,really expensive to do it.

[Chris_Hamilton]

It might be a mock up but it sure seems really,really expensive to do it.

Actually it's pretty simple. Get several lengths of the diameter pipe you want to use. Using a bandsaw cut the pipe into 1-2" lengths. Start laying out the header. Put a slight tuck into the end of the pipe you want to slip into the previous piece. Once you have it where you want it, tiny tack to hold it in place. You can create a curve or radius by inserting more or less of a piece into the previous piece on one end to the other. Pretty ingenious IMO. Similar to those building block style header mock up kits. Lot less expensive though. Mocking up a header is time consuming any way you look at it.
No way is it a header waiting to be welded up. If someone thinks so I would question how much experience welding with any process you may have. You'd have to be nuts to weld that up like that. Just for how it would look cosmetically, plus the fact that it is slip fitted instead of butted.It would be a mess inside the pipe.

[bob460]

Looks good when done IMO......this guy is a BADASSSSS welder.

[frnkeore]

For about a year and a half, I did machine work and tube fitting, for 304 SS weldments for Nor-Cal Products Inc, 70 miles South of me. All heliarc welds. I tacked them in place and they then went to be welded. I am not a welder.

The allowance for each weld, is .005 - .015. Depending on heat generated and the skill of the welder. For 100 welds, that equals .5 to 1.5", enough to screw things up even on headers.

While all their bends are mandrel bends, I was privileged, when I was racing in the '70's to watch headers made with sand bends. It's pretty simple but, takes skill. You take a piece of soft iron wire, the length you want the primarys to be. Shape it, keeping in mind the diameter of the pipe for clearance and bring it to where you want the collector to be.

You bend that pipe, by packing it with sand and capping the ends. The tubing has to be long, to cut and fit inline with the header flange and if the collector is close to the bend on that end. One of the caps, has to have a solid piece of heavy steel, welded to it, to put into a vise, to hold it while bending.

That is where the skill starts. You take a rosebud and heat where the bends will be, the tube won't collapse and you follow the counture of the wire. You can make some unbelieviable, contorted bends that way and have a perfectly formed ID. Then cut and tack, in place.

Then bend the same length second wire to shape and so on.

This, although not a great pic, is the configuration of my sand bent, 1 3/4 primary tubes on my car. Note the tight radius on some of them. The tubes are perfectly shaped and not collapsed or distorted, at all.

[MadBill]

Yes, a little fuzzy, but looks like it would be great in the flesh. What is that car? A Formula Atlantic, or??

[hoffman900]

I've seen headers like the OP has on motorcycles. They're typically more show pieces, which the are good at.

[frnkeore]

Yes, a little fuzzy, but looks like it would be great in the flesh. What is that car? A Formula Atlantic, or??

It is a Brabham, Formula Atlantic.

[Bob Hollinshead]

This will be a time consuming header build

I bet that will be a finished header, the mockup could have been a lot cruder than that to get the job done if it was just a mockup.