When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Not sure if im the only one with this issue but figured id ask
does anyone else run hooker headers long tubes and have issues scraping every bump and dip on the roads i drive on...hell i cant even get in and out of my driveway without scraping up the loudmouth intermediate pipe and headers....
the car looks lower than stock so i looked at the springs and it appears the.mook i got the car from did a hacksaw job to lower the cars stance vs. Doing it the correct way and purchasing lowering springs that isually come as dual rate springs so i realize thats part of the reason i scrape a lot of things but looking under the car these hooker headers stick down very very very low
my 1st 1998 TA i had the MAC mid length headers and borla system and never did i scrape a single thing but this loudmouth and hooker combo wont tuck up under the car well at all and wanted to see if anyone else had any similar issues and what options they had to fix the issue???
see attached photos to see my extremely low hanging headers......
I am wide open to suggestions by anyone that might have any as well. I have already ripped off one of the slip fit tubes over the header collector last year when i was on vacation and had to have my bird in the shop for 2 days and rent some pathetic toilet rental car and drive around in pure embarassment while my pipe got slid back on the collector..... 2 days i know is lame for a 10..20 min job but they were busy and charged me $295.00 so got ripped off as well as rental car fees but thats how it goes sometimes especially when a shop knows your in a pinch so they made it pay big
Oh well life goes on but prefer to fix this and if it means new headers then i have my eyes set on a pair of Kooks long tubes and a full B&B exhaust. B&B exhaust note is sweeter than any other i have heard with a loud bass tone along with a high pitch in the upper rpms that no other system can produce.
thanks all
Having a lowered f body with headers and exhaust and wanting it to not scrape is not going to happen.
Lowered f bodies with aftermarket headers/exhaust scrape everything. That's how it is. There's just no room to tuck large piping under those cars and it not hang down in places, that's why the factory piping on the Y pipe was squished flat. And they did that with stock ride height cars from the factory because even at stock ride height piping is an issue.
I had hooker headers and was lowered, I scraped things but didn't care, also had tires that rubbed but again that's the lowered life, and sometimes I would have to readjust the piping because it would get pulled back a little here and there. It's extremely easy to do. If you're gonna stay lowered you may wanna get familiar with doing a couple of things on your own.
For what it's worth, I bought some Eibach prokit springs for mine, the ride went to **** and the car leaned on the right rear real bad, to correct it I cut the stock rear springs and put them back in and it dramatically improved the car. I talked to a few buddies and one of them that had lowered a lot of them said they always had to do that from having so many problems from lowering springs. Cut stock springs is not always a sign of a hack or bad practice.
You're best bet will likely to be raising the car, some exhaust systems tuck a little better than others, but pretty much all are going to scrape if the car is lowered.
Having a lowered f body with headers and exhaust and wanting it to not scrape is not going to happen.
Lowered f bodies with aftermarket headers/exhaust scrape everything. That's how it is. There's just no room to tuck large piping under those cars and it not hang down in places, that's why the factory piping on the Y pipe was squished flat. And they did that with stock ride height cars from the factory because even at stock ride height piping is an issue.
I had hooker headers and was lowered, I scraped things but didn't care, also had tires that rubbed but again that's the lowered life, and sometimes I would have to readjust the piping because it would get pulled back a little here and there. It's extremely easy to do. If you're gonna stay lowered you may wanna get familiar with doing a couple of things on your own.
For what it's worth, I bought some Eibach prokit springs for mine, the ride went to **** and the car leaned on the right rear real bad, to correct it I cut the stock rear springs and put them back in and it dramatically improved the car. I talked to a few buddies and one of them that had lowered a lot of them said they always had to do that from having so many problems from lowering springs. Cut stock springs is not always a sign of a hack or bad practice.
You're best bet will likely to be raising the car, some exhaust systems tuck a little better than others, but pretty much all are going to scrape if the car is lowered.
weld a protective sleeve on the exhaust sort of a sacrificial piece to protect the pipes where i see alot of scraping occurring and yes when i get paid again im going to order stock height spri gs because this is ridiculous each time i go out or come back in my own driveway its a full second and a half of SCCCRRRAAAPPPEEEE and my hair stands up on my neck each time. I figure it will tear through the pipe at some point its just a matter of when. So a pipe cut lengthwise in half and welded to the underside of the y pipe should provide me with a skid plate if you will but id really like it better if i coiuld tuck these pipes up higher under there.... i plan on buying 2 new cats and installing them because the car just sounds raspy and stupid loud and not a tuned sound just all out loud so with my new B&B tips and a pair of new cats and 4 new stock height springs i hopefully can at minimum lessen the scraping and keep it to a minimum best case scenario....
wish i had the adjustable height setup lije the 2020 vettes have and its tied into the GPS system in the car so if you put a waypp int in on the GPS each time you return to that exact apot like a speed bump or your own driveway lip the car will raise or lower by itself i think that is one of the most forward thinking ideas any car mfg has ever devised in the history of automobiles.
anyone have their TAs on full air ride bags? Adjust it on the fly im sure?
that has to be a helpful item. In speed bump...dips in the road and steep driveway lips. Is air ride an inexpensive or comparible or 30 times more expensive alternative compared to coil springs cost wise?
For most there isn't a good way around it so we just accept it.
The scraping didn't bother me, I've had a lot of lowered cars, comes with the territory. For me I was not going to go back to stock exhaust and I couldn't stand the 4x4 look either so mine scraped and needed a little attention once a year or so, no biggie, that's modded car life.
If you don't mind the stock ride height just put it to stock ride height and if your exhaust is anywhere near reasonable you should be fine.
Although, there are cases where piping hangs way too low and can be adjusted. Go to your local exhaust shop and see if that is an option for you and start there. Or lift it and see if the exhaust can be tucked better.
And like mentioned about the motor mounts.... if you still have stock mounts they are likely bad allowing the engine to sag and hang down and will contribute to the issue
Exhaust Clearance issues FIXED permanently@@!!!!! I have Ground Clearance now!!!
I got the permanent solution, BMR DRive Shaft Loop Cross Brace..............Now take a look at the amount of clearance I have on my car................I bought a pair of quad Oval B&B Exhaust Tips, and needed to bend the one tail pipe to center the tip in the enclave in the rear bumper cover, its still a tiny bit wonky which I will take care of when I get my welder back from a friend, but for now they are mostly straight. I am so thrilled that this BMR Cross Brace flipped backwards is holding my exhaust up with over 3 1/2 inches of clearance, I dont even scrape coming in and out of my driveway anymore. So I got as much clearance as I possibly could get.
So while I did not install the loop part around the driveshaft, the cross brace that I have had laying around from a group purchase back in 2000-2001 finally made itself handy. The previous owner could not get the super high price tag for the car he wanted so he stripped a lot of parts off the car prior to selling it, the subframe connectors being one of the many parts stripped. Hell he even took the sun visors off along with the stereo, sub frame connectors, Strut tower brace, Amp, CD Changer, Shifter, shifter ball, fog lights, headlights, he stripped it down good. Put in burnt seat covers, and took the floor mats, the sun shades for the T Tops, front license plate cover, im surprised it had an oil filter on it when I bought it. Anyway, so the threaded holes where the center of the sub frame connectors went, were just sitting there and I realized thats where the BMR Drive Shaft Loop installs, along with the sub frame connectors. So installed regular, the dip in the brace allows the exhaust to hang down a bit if you have a larger than 3 inch pipe, so I flipped it around so the flat part was holding up the exhaust pipe, so I have fantastic clearance now. See photos.
When I was installing the Tips I had to use a cheater bar to bend the tail pipe which has done a great amount of damage to the 2 pan hard rods and put nice bends into them which Ill have to buy BMR or Hotchkiss pan hard rods to allow more clearance for the exhaust pipes. I want to buy a whole B&B exhaust system because this loud Mouth is TERRIBLE and fit is TERRIBLE and sound is TERRIBLE. So that will be for another day but for the moment, the tips are installed and I have fantastic ground clearance now. Thank you to all that provided suggestions and info but I looked and I have energy suspension red poly engine mounts, so those are not collapsed at all, so the headers are as low/high as they are going to be if I replaced them.
So this was the only solution that was easy. The other solution was to weld exhaust hangers in a few spots under the car and weld mounts on the floor pan, or other spots to hold the pipes up from 24 inches past the header collectors, one next to the tail housing of the trans, one before the exhaust goes up and over the rear and then one or two each side for the tail pipes coming around the fuel tank and trunk floor to provide full support the length of the car and do it right. But this 1/4 to 3/8ths inch thick plate the cross brace is made from holds the entire center of the exhaust up very high so for now this is going to solve the problem until I buy a new or used B&B exhaust system.
So if any of you guys dont want to scrape your exhaust anymore, Perhaps you can fabricate a cross brace and bolt it to the mounting pads next to the trans like I did or buy a BMR drive shaft loop to hold up your exhaust as high as possible.
Good luck and thank you all for your help. Why i love coming here, i get the best info and advice
Jennifur BMR Drive Shaft Loop Cross Brace Installed backwards to provide over 3 1/2 inches of ground clearance for the cat back system and almost 2 3/4 inches for Y pipe and header collectors. Best ill get with lowered car. BMR Drive Shaft Loop installed backwards to provide over 3 1/2 inches of ground clearance for entire cat back exhaust system
To the OP, I don't think you have to just put up with it. I don't have a picture but I have American Racing Headers, 1 7/8 headers into their 3"Y into 4" single and my exhaust sits way higher than that, there are multiple things that will hit on mine before the Y-pipe, the lowest thing under my car is the UMI Mid-mount torque arm brace and it's not really THAT low, I am sitting on Strano Springs with his Yellow Konis, I can measure if you want but it dropped somewhere between 1" & 1.5"...... the muffler I chose does happen to sit very low and does occasionally scrape but that is because I wanted a larger cased muffler (for sound reduction), that still dumped before the axle (for weight reduction) but if you just run a bullet on mine it sits right in the tunnel beside the driveshaft or you could bring it over the axle (I think you'd have to reduce it to 3.5" for that) and all the way out the back. I chose to bring my pipe down out of the tunnel with a couple of 15* transition pieces from dynomax to make room for the muffler, clearanced the pan just a smidge under the pass rear seat and hung it there, not ideal but if I am careful with transistions in parking lots it never scrapes, if I were willing to cut into the pass rear floor pan just 1" (which I'm not) to position the muffler just a little higher it would never scrape on any paved road but again this is just my custom muffler choice, my Headers & Y pipe aren't even in the picture.
11-03-2020, 09:34 AM
Hooker headers scraping everything on the ground 
