I have a 67 camaro with a 383 stroker engine fitted with Turbo 350 trans. The car has power brake booster, saginaw manual steering box. Does anyone know of a good exhaust header that will fit this combination. I am not sure what make is currently installed but the cylinder tubing is 1" 5/8 and it rubs on both sides of the motor on part of the steering system braces. I have already removed it and dented the pipes to try and give some clearance but it still rubs fairly bad. The headers currently connect to a pair of flowmaster boxes with the short stub that points to the ground. Any suggestions or someone with a similar setup that can help.

 

I think the answers you'll get here are going to be based on what each person has or likes. There are design differences between headers that affect both performance and fitment. You can choose long headers, short headers, tri-y's, big tube for high rpm h.p., small tube for low end torque, etc.
I have a stroker too, and I wanted to try something different. I put on Flowtech's "Afterburner" headers. They claim the torque of tri-y's with the h.p. of big tube headers. And from the way the car reacts, I'm not questioning the claim. They fit very well in the engine compartment, and they also tuck nicely under the car and don't hang low to cause a ground clearance issue. I got them from Summit and opted for the ceramic coated ones. Although they only show the painted ones in the catalog, they do show the ceramic ones on their website.

 

My main concern is fitment due to the way my current headers fowl against the steering mechanism I am afraid something is going to get damaged as the engine moves. I am pretty sure I know the headers you are talking about they looked like they where very compact as the individual pipes form into a single mid way down the header. Mine curve all the way to pretty much under the car where they come together 4 into a 3" pipe. I wasn't sure if the 383 motor sat differently from a stock block or whether it was the previous owner of my car who tried to jam the biggest pipes in 1" 5/8 to get the max power. Does your car have the manual steering and Auto transmission. Thanks for the first information, I was going to buy the headers you mentioned but did not want to go to all the trouble of having them shipped, trying to fit them just to find out they also had a clearance issue.

 

The 383 is built using a stock block, so it won't sit any differently unless the previous owner modified the mounts. I have manual steering and a T350 trans, pretty much like your set up. My headers fit like a glove. And instead of using the "small head" header bolts which were still a tight fit in a few places, I used Allen head intake manifold bolts, and cut the short end of my Allen wrench even shorter to give me more swinging room.

 

Thanks again. I may be contacting you alot if that is ok. This is my first Camaro and I am not a Chev expert. The guy who put the basic car together had set it up to drag but never finished the project. I putting back into streetable form but am having to check over everything. The engine and transmission where professionally built but I am sure he installed them and pretty much threw the rest of the car together. It has the basic's but I am trying to clean everything up. It has a 12 bolt rear end with a 4.56 gear and the coil over conversion. Once I get the gear changed to something more suited for the street I will hopefully be able to start driving it.One thing that did concern me was I read several other posts about 383's and they where talking about engine internal/external balancing. This is something I am afraid the previous owner may not have done. He never got finished so never really got to drive the car. Is there anyway for me to confirm the engine is balanced correctly or would it be completely obvious due to vibration etc. I don't want to break anything immediately by not realizing if this had been done. I have only driven the car about 7 miles so don't have a great feel for it yet.

 

Building a 383 requires more technical knowledge beyond the simple take apart & put back together type of rebuild. I would hope the person who built the engine knew what it needed, but there's no guarantee. The 383 uses the external balance "400" harmonic balancer and flexplate. I would look up some of the manufacturers online who makes the flexplates and compare to see if you have similar counter weights on yours. Same thing for determining what harmonic balancer you have. A lot of them are in the 7.25" diameter range, but not all. Again, you can go online and compare yours to see if there are any distinguishing markings, holes, etc. Does yours have any brand label on it? Some can have info on it that the pulley could be hiding.

 

The engine was suppose to have been built by a good engine shop from Texas, but I know the previous owner installed it in the car. That is what concerns me, would the engine builder have installed the external balancer or could this have been done by the owner after the fact. What am I looking for, is the balancer bolted to the flywheel or is it on the front crank pulley, or is it the pully itself. Could you point me in the right direction. I am going to search on the internet as you suggested and see if I recognise anything. Any more information would be great. I included a couple of pictures of my car/motor.

thanks

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You can get under the car and nudge the engine over to look at the flexplate. If you have the external balance flexplate, you'll see a counterweight welded to the face of the plate,near the ring gear. The engine builder wouldn't have necessarily installed the harmonic balancer, but he could have. If he didn't install it, he should have recommended the correct one to the owner. Thebalancer is mounted to the front of the crankshaft and your bottom pulley(s) are bolted to that. Try going to www.summitracing.comand search their balancers and flexplates to take a look, or you can also look up the different manufacturers online for info.

 

Verified thatthe motor is fitted witha Harmonic balanceretc so that is ok.Now for my next problem.

The car has a newer 3 wire internally regulated Alternator. When I bought the car it was stripped and I had to completely re-wire it and used a painless wiring kit. When the car was running I had noticed that the alternator was not charging since my system voltage was dropping to approx 11.8 volts. I had the main Battery Charge leadand the ext connection made, but the third wire I had left disconnected. It is marked "Bat" and I assumed this could only be the remote voltage sense wire. I decided to connect this straight back to the main battery terminal of the alternator not thinking much else about it. When I cranked the car upand rev above idle I could instantly see the system voltage rise as I guess the alternator was kicking in. Then about 10 sec's later the car would start to mis-fire badly and would stall. I disconnected the wire again and everything runs fine. I am guessing that the remote sense wire is somehow dragging the system voltage down and causing my ignition system to mis-fire. Could this be because I connected the sensing wire directly to the Alternator Battery terminal? Would you have any information on this.

Problem #2
Started to notice fuel leakage from somewhere on my new Holley carb. I have already replaced base gasket and re-sealed etc but it is still happening.I cannot pin point exactly the source of the leak but the base is always wet and occassionally has fuel dripping from the secondary vacumn rod. The cvar is fitted with what I believe is a fairly high flow Fuel pump (previous owner was going to drag) Could it be that the fuel delivery pressure is so high that the carb seals etc are leaking.Do you know if it is necessary to run some type of fuel pressure regulator with this type of setup.

Thanks again for all your advise.

 

If your engine did not have the proper flexplate & harmonic balancer you would know it as soon as you start it up. There would be vibration when you rev. The output terminal(threaded stud on back) of your alt needs to be wired to the battery or the battery terminal of the starter. The slide on connections on the side of the alt are #1 Alternator exiter circuit (key switched) #2 connect to output terminal.