"Plain Jane" 1970 Nova Build

[Arrowsmith]

Getting closer to done.....

Here are the headers I used: They're custom headers from Lemons' in California. The headers are a slip fit design (each pipe slips into the collector and the flange is split). This allows getting them into the car with a wee bit more ease. The primary tubes are 2.25-inches in diameter while the collectors are 4.0-inches.



Dan Lemons does fabulous work. Here's the TIG welding on the primaries:



Inside the tube, you can see the same attention to detail:



The collectors incorporate an exhaust gas transition spear:



I really struggled with what to coat them with. I've found that some of the coatings out there don't live. Also, after a lot of hand-wringing, I decided to mute the coating colour so as to match the understated theme of the car. After a bit of research I decided to use a Cerakote process. It's used on custom guns and rifles, and certain mixes have the heat capacity for headers. To get there, the local shop asked me to clean the header parts:



I never saved any "after" shots of the finished headers but you can see the almost flat black I selected in some of the other images of the car. Moving back in the exhaust I incorporated V-band clamps to hook the 4-inch to 3-inch reducers to the exhaust.



Out back, I used these hangers from Stainless Works. They attach to the longer-than-stock rear seat belt bolts I installed. Not shown here is the clamp I used. Instead of the clamp shown, I went with a beefier stainless steel u-bolt setup.



I made a set of turnouts from 3-inch stainless and they were TIG welded directly to the Hooker mufflers:



This is a look at the exhaust before I modified the head pipes to fit. The system has 3-inch pipes and of course a cross-over. Hooker Headers makes it for LS swaps. I have three different sets of mufflers on hand and I picked what I thought would be the quietest. And it really is subdued, even without tail pipes (which I cannot run with the rear suspension and the mount location required for the large electric fuel pump I have on the car).



The final big piece under the car is the driveshaft. I had Mark Williams build me a custom 3-1/2-inch diameter job from 7075 aluminum. FYI, many years ago, I tested a conventional steel shaft against an aluminum shaft in a NHRA Stock Eliminator car. With back to back to back A-B-A testing, I discovered the aluminum shaft was definitely quicker (bad alas, not NHRA legal for the application....L-O-L). Too bad no one can see this M-W shaft hidden up inside the car. It's a work of art:



M-W built the billet steel slip yoke for the TH400. I use solid (no zerk) Spicer 1350 universal joints front and rear. The driveshaft yoke isn't welded. The reason is, you can't easily weld 7075. Williams invented a bonding system to install the pair of "weld" yokes on the shaft. The strength actually exceeds that of a conventional welded (non-7075 alloy) shaft.



The rear of the shaft is the same -- Spicer 1350 u-joints and an "Accubonded" yoke. Williams high speed balances the shafts, and for my application, the critical speed is just about perfect for the RPM range of the car.



That's all for now. Down the road, I'll show you some other details...