Lookie what $5000 buys you....

[Kern Dog]

Going well so far today. The headers that I thought may be a problem seem to be okay.
A little background....
TTI sells the best headers in terms of fit and quality. I have not tried Dougs but the rumor is, they are of equal quality at 2/3 the price.
Hooker and Hedman seem to be about the same as far as price and fitment from what I have seen. They are cheaper but you have to be ready to make some clearance dents. These are Hooker #5903. I am only using them because they came with the car.

First up, the drivers side. With the engine still bolted in place, the LH slid right up into place. I did unbolt the center link to get the header in and loosely put it back on to check clearance/

 

[Kern Dog]

They clear the steering box by a comfortable margin. I had to dent the TTIs in the red car to clear.

They clear the torsion bar too.

This was a great surprise. The only spot I need to dent is where the Pitman arm swings. One 1/4" deep dent there and it clears fine. I did NOT check to see how the starter fits in. I have a Denso mini in the shed.

 

[Kern Dog]

As odd as it seems, the right side had the most trouble spots. First up, the transmission dipstick tube and a header tube want to occupy the same space.

The header flange isn't against the head yet. More on this later.

Check out how close it is to the edge or the transmission pan rail. It gets worse. Right now the header flange is still off the head by about 1/4".

No problem with clearance around the torsion bar. I did remove it to slip the header in and slip it back in place to check clearance.

 

[Kern Dog]

Now with the dipstick clocked to allow the header to sit flat against the head, the clearance to the transmission pan rail tightens up.

It now makes contact and will need a few smacks.

The head of the Idler arm makes contact too.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

I've been known to stick a length of pipe in the collector & moose the header for clearance....

Std pitman & idler? Or quick ratio stuff?

 

[Kern Dog]

Denting the header tubes wasn't enough. I need to dent past the bead of the welded collector.

NOW it clears!

Looking through the collector, you can see how much I had to dent for room.

 

[Kern Dog]

TTI suggests to "cold bend" if needed instead of using a torch to heat and soften the pipes. I could have done that but I wanted to keep the clearance I had at the torsion bar. I do plan on bigger bars since these are the stock 383 2 barrel .88 bars. I intend to go up to at least a 1.03. Plus, cold bending and moving the collector over also slightly affects the tube above that is already in the way of the dipstick tube.
Regarding that....

The one on the left was what was in the transmission and in Ginger, my red car. It cleared the headers just fine. In this car with these headers, that curve above the retaining strap put it right in the way of the header.
The black tube just has that that one bend near the bottom. That puts the top between the header and the fender apron. That is a win in my opinion! I extended the mounting strap about 1 1/4".

 

[Kern Dog]

The headers were cleaned up a bit and painted the same color that I used for the headers in the other car. I wish that I had a bigger blast cabinet. I would have sand blasted them to get a really good cleaning.

Now knowing that the headers fit without extensive cutting and rerouting, I'm on to the other underbody things.

 

[MoparDanMan]

Where there's a will, there's a hammer. Coming along nicely.

 

[1 Wild R/T]

TTI suggests to "cold bend" if needed instead of using a torch to heat and soften the pipes. I could have done that but I wanted to keep the clearance I had at the torsion bar. I do plan on bigger bars since these are the stock 383 2 barrel .88 bars. I intend to go up to at least a 1.03. Plus, cold bending and moving the collector over also slightly affects the tube above that is already in the way of the dipstick tube.

FWIW torsion bar diameter change is gonna have virtually no effect on clearance.... From .88 to 1.03 is a .015 change.... Which only half of that .015 will be toward the header.... So.0075..... Typical copier paper is .004 thick... So two sheets of paper..... LOL...

 

[Kern Dog]

I'm still wondering if the transmission mount puts the tailshaft up too close to the floor. Ginger had a mount that was way too low but something here feels wrong.
I went through the stash of cooler lines and started test fitting.
The rear cooler line here needs a downward bend right off of the fitting to give that kickdown cable more room to work.

A little bend helped a little bit.

I didn't think it was enough so I grabbed another line and shaped it.

Better fit.

I have looked around but cannot find any pictures of a 1970 B body crossmember and mount. IT seems like this mount sits too tall. The trans is closer to the body than I think it should be.

 

[dsd1967]

That line didn’t have to compensate for a cable from the factory so if you’re sticking with the cable, it’s not surprising you have to tweak things.

I know your pain as I’m in the middle of putting a 400/727 into a 67 d100 that was an original manual truck. Every day is an adventure.

 

[Kern Dog]

This transmission crossmember....
It came with the car but I don't know if it is correct for the car. The cube shaped mount part # for the 1970 Charger is the same as for a 1965 Barracuda. I mention this because some of the parts in the shed are from a parts stash from a guy that was building a Barracuda.
I don't know which is the right part. Napa online lists a spool mount and the cube style for 1970. Rock Auto lists a spool mount only. I don't recall what was original to the red car but I have a fuzzy memory that it was the cube style.

 

[Photon440]

FWIW torsion bar diameter change is gonna have virtually no effect on clearance.... From .88 to 1.03 is a .015 change.... Which only half of that .015 will be toward the header.... So.0075..... Typical copier paper is .004 thick... So two sheets of paper..... LOL...

My math says .15 not .015. If you add .015 to .88 you'll get .895

 

[1 Wild R/T]

My math says .15 not .015. If you add .015 to .88 you'll get .895

Those damn decimal points... Usually I don't screw that up... Okay so ten times as much.... We're talking twenty sheets of paper.... Still not very much....

 

[Kern Dog]

I've been known to stick a length of pipe in the collector & moose the header for clearance....

Std pitman & idler? Or quick ratio stuff?

They are the fast ratio. I was expecting to encounter some fitment issues about that.
I have 2" TTI headers in Ginger and they clear the F/R arms but the 1 7/8" TTIs use a different tube routing for some reason. They don't clear according to some people.
The dipstick tube reroute cleared nicely though.

 

[chargervert]

When I put my 71 Challenger convertible together, I had Hooker supercomp headers on it,and I had a T/A steering box with the fast ratio pitman arm on it,it would not clear the header,I had to swap out the steering box and the pitman arm back to the stock steering box and pitman arm.

 

[ckessel]

Something to ponder for your fitment. Remember that there is a deck height difference between b and rb blocks that change the distance between the heads. That affects the placement of the tubes in the bay and one of the reasons TTI shows different units with different fitment issues depending on block/head combos. The TTI units I'm using are low deck but have to fit the Indy aluminum block as the base of the block is wider than iron and standard b pipes would not clear.

 

[nchrome]

Mine is all stock and l used Hedman headers and the only problem l had was in order to get the drivers side header in and the starter (original starter) both have to go in at the same time. Can't do one the the other they both have to go in at the same time. Didn't have to dent the headers anywhere either including for the pitman arm or idler arm.

 

[Kern Dog]

Headers are in. Just like Nchrome stated above, the starter and left header have to go in together. If the torsion bar was out, I may have been able to slip the starter in with the header already in place. These pipes were built to work around the stock big starter so I have lots of room with this mini-starter.

I still need cotter keys and a few other small details. I am amazed at how much room I have to work here. The combination of being a low deck 383 and smaller headers really makes a difference.