360 Header Options

I had communicated with Alex @ Fabspeed about these headers.

He assured me they were CA smog legal. I presume he tested a set here to make that assertion.

They look like a great product and are about 22 lbs lighter than stock if I correctly remember the specs he gave me.

 

But Fabspeed headers are unshielded, unlike the factory headers.
We are all aware of the issues w/ 355's (alternater failures, melted wiring harnesses, exposed & overheated brake lines & engine mounts, ect) due to the heat issues. Theres a lot of rubber components to think of as well.
If you go this route you should speak to a local metal/welding shop first to see what they would want to fabricate a heat shield w/fiberglass insulation on the fabspeed headers.

 

The 360 will be far worse because it is essentially a sealed engine compartment. There is no flow through cooling air.

If the Fabspeed headers are indeed CA legal they will be able to provide you with CARB documentation.

 

Ceramic coat them.

 

Doesn't cut as much heat.

 

Not as efficient as heat shields? Ah, fair enough then.

 

Sounds very doable.

Maybe it is a mod Fabspeed could offer.

 

You say bigger problem. What problems are you experiencing? The problems I am aware of are mostly minor in nature. There have been some cracks. Those are easily repaired. The fleet of 360 is old and many have high mileage. If there was going to be a big problem we would know by now. The 355 problem was obvious to us long before the model was discontinued and it only lasted less than 4 years. The 360 has been discontinued for years and the problems have been few. In this shop we have had more failures of V12 manifolds than 360 and 360 is our bread and butter car. We have many with over 50k miles and one with considerably over 100k miles.

Forgive me for thinking this is a bit extreme.


You want to worry about something? Worry about transmissions. We have done major repairs on far more transmissions than we have seen anything wrong with exhaust manifolds.

 

Brian, I spoke w/ you a while back about the problem of precat material breaking off, and being sucked back into the engine. I personally know one person who had engine damage from it this past year, and he also knew a person who had precat material upstream of his header (it was discovered when going to aftermarket headers, and no damage resulted). What's your current opinion on this?

I am seriously considering cutting my header open, removing the precat, and rewelding it, and moving the o2 sensors to the '99 car positions. The person I mentioned above has already done this, and I am keeping up w/ him as to how it's working. My concern w/ rewelding the header is getting the thin material clean enough to avoid contamination from hydrocarbon buildup; it was suggested that argon gas be flowed through it. My concern is doing all this, and ending up having the welds fail. I agree that the sealed engine compartment presents a lot of future headaches, and having to go to aftermarket, unshielded headers worries me too. I've added the challenge grill, and have looked into how I could possibly increase airflow through the lower vents, and even looked at the challenge undertray, thinking of copying their vents into the engine compartment.

Brian, you see these cars everyday, and have identified the excess heat as a problem. Do you have any ideas on what might be a solution, especially when the 430's have such a similar design?

Thanks!
David

 

On the first topic, theoretically what you say is very possible and I have heard of it happening to a car on the East Coast. As far as any experience I might have with it I am covered by non disclosure agreements so no comment. However if you or anyone else has an experience like that I sure would like to know about it.

As for the second topic it is a violation of a hand full of laws but you can go to a 99 arrangement to get rid of the precats. But I would not suggest you break any laws.

On the heat...we have been dealing with that a long time. Simple fact is if you make horsepower you are going to make a lot of heat. If you are going to have good aerodynamics you are going to rob yourself of the ventillation air to deal with it. That is why I am so against unshielded headers. 355 has a lot more air under the hood than 360 but so far the 360 headers have had a very low incidence of degradation of the header tubes and very little trouble with other heat related failures or advanced wear of perishable items under the hood. 550 and 355 were worse in those areas so I think they learned something. As I said before, I service a 360 with about 125k miles and several in the 50k range including a couple of people that are torture testing them. I think the cars are holding up really well. Is that to say there will be no heat related failures or accelerated aging? No, but I think the owners as a group are in pretty good shape in that area.

I will say this though. Just like I have been saying about TR's and BB's before that and Daytona's before that, do not treat the transmission like it is a Pro Stock drag car. It ain't gonna take it and I got a bunch of broken parts to prove it. Especially you guys that put bigger tires on them.