Hey guys. I just lowered my 69 Camaro 3" all the way around with Hotchkis springs. The Hooker long tube headers sit way too low for me.

Anyone else out there with a lowered car / lsx swap? What headers are you running?

I'm considering the new Hooker cast iron manifolds. They say that they work well up to 500HP & are reasonably priced. I'm runnning an LS1 with a cam. Should be around 400HP.

 

I just got some Doug's Headers for my project. you might look at them.

Scott

 

I'll second Scott - the Dougs headers are very good on ground clearance. On my swap using Dougs headers, the collector tube sits just about 1/2" below the bottom of the subframe. If you use the band clamp style connectors (rather than a flange or v-band assembly) it will help maintain that clearance.

Here is a photo of my Doug's headers with a v-band assembly on them

 

I know hooker makes some that are supposed to have great clearance. Toddoky on here can fill you in with pics.

 

I have Stainless Works headers and the clearance is about the same as shown in TheBandit's pic above.

 

Silverado, I just went thru this with my 67 camaro. I did not lower my car but the result would be the same. The one thing I have found out about these swap headers is you need to know what engine angle you have based off your frame. Some set them up different based on what trans you have. I tried a set that put me about 1/4" from the floor pan at 3* engine angle and to get clearance from the floor pan I had to drop the engine angle to almost to 5* and that was not good for engine to rear drive line angle. So I went to a kooks header with a 3 degree engine angle and they fit pretty good with good ground clearence. This gave me a better drive line angle and I did not have to mess with the rear. Some headers just hang low no matter what. But some tuck pretty good and you can change that some by changing your engine angle. You may have to shim the rear to get good working angles to get your desired affect. If you are already at 4-1/5 to 5* angle with some of the headers above you may still hang a little low . Then you may want to concider raising engine angle if you can. Just wanted to share what my experience was selecting a header.

I dont have pics of the kooks yet but I can get a couple if interested in seeing. The one down side of the kooks is there pricey. But in the end I wish I had tried these first.

 

The image attached here shows the ground clearance achieved with the new Hooker 1st-gen F-body/3rd-gen Nova 1-7/8" long-tube headers and 3" exhaust system when the engine and transmission are installed using the Hooker LS swap engine mount kit and Hooker transmission crossmember. Running the 1-3/4" version of these headers and/or the Hooker 2.5" exhaust system will obviously increase the ground clearance even more.

 

It's good to hear people such as yourself start to pay greater attention to the often overlooked details of these swaps when buying parts. The new Hooker collection of components for this application provide the optimized fitment and ground clearances that they do while maintaining a 3 degree engine/transmission inclination angle.

 

Do you have a part # for the 1-3/4 x 2.5" headers? Is there a price difference?

 

Thanks for all the replies everyone. This is very helpful. I will hopefully set the engine in this weekend or next and check my engine angle & go from there. Both the Kooks and new Hooker headers seem to have very good clearance.

 

Sorry to tell you, there's no hope for this header dilemma. It's best if you just give me the car and I'll take one for the team.

 

Although you might see info stating otherwise elsewhere, the new 1-3/4" long-tubes also have 3" collectors to allow them to connect directly to the 3" Hooker exhaust systems. If you want to run either of the long-tubes with the Hooker 2.5" exhaust system (or other), we make transition adapters that allow you to make that happen. Yes, there is a price difference between the two but I can't recall what it is at the moment. The 1-3/4" headers are 2275HKR in black paint, 2275-1HKR in silver ceramic, 2275-3HKR in black ceramic and 2275-7HKR in stainless steel.