355 header with NO heat damage (35,000 miles)

Just pulled the shielding off my original (to my knowledge) left-hand header. 1996 5.2 355 with 35,000 miles.

There is absolutely no sign of any damage or over-heating/impending failure etc.

I understand that the right-hand header is more prone to problems but I have a good feeling about that one since the left-hand one looks like new.

After reading some of the posts and the problems with some rebuilt QV headers I decided that I want to be able to see my header tubes. I will get them ceramic coated on the outside and make up some heat shields for various bits. I feel more comfortable about this now. My original headers will probably last a very long time now with the heat shields removed (well, one of them so far). Again, this is the original header to my knowledge. The previous owner, who had the car 5~6 years, told me that he never had them changed and seemed certain they were original.

There will be more heat in the engine compartment but the headers will also cool off faster and removal of all 4 cats. and the use of a Challenge grille will go a long way, I think, to compensate for the lack of heat shielding.

I know that other people had headers fail at much lower mileage and there are some people that have more mileage than mine with the OEM headers with heatshields and theirs still appear to be good. This seems to indicate, as others have theorized, that there may have been bad batches of headers now and then. Or it could be that other people that had problems always ran with the cats. installed, or they had lean running conditions for some reason. Or..... maybe just luck.


Just for reference... the header weighs 11 lbs. (without the heat shielding).
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Ceramic coating can be sprayed on so you can get just the outside done. I'm guessing you can also get them submerged in a bath to coat everything but I'm not going to go that route.

I was thinking of sending them to Swaintech but I'm not sure now as they seem to be unable or unwilling to ceramic coat my air boxes.

 

If you do a bit of searching you will also find people that say the aftermarket headers cause a loss of horsepower or torque. Ferrari have been racing at the highest levels of motorsport for decades. They know a few things about designing exhaust systems and have vastly more experience than the aftermarket companies. I cannot imagine other companies "found" horsepower that Ferrari "missed."

Mufflers are another story as Ferrari have to comply to different countries noise laws and customer's expectations. Aftermarket exhaust manufacturers can make sweet sounding, crazy loud mufflers that they sell as "For off road use only" or something like that. Also, if a customer buys an aftermarket exhaust for cars like these it's almost a given that they want (and therefore are willing to tolerate) a louder sound and possibly a nasty resonance at a certain frequency or frequencies. In this instance aftermarket manufacturers may be able to "find" a bit more horsepower in the muffler design (but not because they were more clever than Ferrari).

If you look at the photo of my naked Ansa O.E.M. header and your aftermarket header you will see that the O.E.M. first goes from two pipes into one and the other two pipes into one and then these two resulting pipes into one final pipe (4-2-1). Rest assured that Ferrari decided on this for a reason and told Ansa to build it this way. On yours it goes from four single pipes into one final pipe (4-1). There are advantages and disadvantages to both designs. Also the different designs can have a higher peak horsepower for one while the other may have a better torque spread. It can't simply be stated that one design is better than the other but I'm certain Ferrari chose the best compromise for this engine. They designed the whole package.

Construction quality can be another story too. There can be companies that use better material, make better welds etc. than the ones Ferrari have made to their specs. by Ansa or whoever.... (maybe some worse too)

 

".. and their road cars for the last 30-odd years have had exactly nothing to do with their racing efforts, beyond the very high level trickle-down engineering and metallurgy. "

Huh???



"Ferrari did not make the 355 headers with the sole, primary goal of producing peak power in a tiny (race car) rev range. They made them to support a broad range of power, and the emissions requirements (e.g. the air injectors) applicable to a street car. "

I certainly didn't say that they did.



"While I've no doubt Ferrari doesn't "miss" any horsepower when they're building exhaust systems for race cars, they most certainly do live with trade-offs necessary to produce street cars. And those trade-offs most certainly can be massaged to find more power, usually in this instance at the cost of torque, midrange power and/or emissions hardware"

gee.... I think I said this, more or less, in my post

 

Yes, the header does look nice. Having said that I haven't done the right-hand header yet and it seems to be more troublesome (don't understand why) according to some folks. Since I haven't owned the car since new the possibility exists that they were changed but certainly not by the previous owner of 5~6 years (don't have all the receipts/documents for the car either).

I have not had the car very long (about half a year) and have not driven it hard nor have I put many miles on it.

 

Good point. I didn't even notice that before.