Looking to put some headers on my cougar and was wondering if anyone could point me in the direction of a good set of long tube headers.
I used Doug’s for the transplanted 351C in my 1969. They cleared the steering box but required some Zbar mods and some clearance of the bell housing. They angle down a bit too much at the collector too. I’m not real impressed overall.
Try FPA headers www.fordpowertrain.com, spendy but very high quality headers. Stay away from hookers the exhaust port mismatch is terrible.
I remember an article written back in the day that dyno’d a 351C once with stock exhaust manifolds then again with headers. The difference in preformance was minimal. The people that did the test were really impressed by how well the stock manifolds flowed.
I can corroborate the observation Tomcat cites. My 351C M-Code dipped into the 13s (barely) using the cast iron stock manifolds. However, if you have the money to burn in the budget, call the FPA guys on the phone and grill them on whether their header require a bracket to lower the power steering cylinder and its ram. That was always the dumbest feature of longtubes on Ford intermediates - and still IS, for all the national brands. Maybe FPA figured out a solution.
R.B. on FPAs you still need the drop bracket.
Thanks for the replies.
Ugh! A man can still dream…thanks for the confirmation.
I run the Hooker Ceramic Coated Comp’s for 2V heads and have been into the high 12’s with Isabel at over 4K lbs.
P.S. Buy the bulletproof drop bracket from WCCC. Spendy but no chance of ripping the nutserts out of the frame rail.
I am not sure what headers the shop wound up putting on mine, but I didn’t need the drop bracket for the steering ram cylinder to clear them.
Probably shorties.
Hooker is not the same company it was 5 to 10 years ago. Some of my old hookers fit great port match was good but the set I ordered this past fall was .4 inches shorter than a 4v port and taller than a 2v port. They would work on a 2v head, but the part number was for a 4V and they were made in china. In my opinion I would rather spend my money with a guy who only makes headers for ford motors and built in the US. Stan at Ford powertrain knows his stuff and stands behind it.
Possibly, I haven’t really looked that close at them. I’ll see if I can get a good angle to take a picture when I get home from work tonight. It’s tight in there. I got a wrench wedged between the shock tower and the header on the drivers side and had a heck of a time getting it loose and out.
This is easy to tell, look under the car. If you have “regular” headers, there will be collectors. If you have them, you will see four pipes coming down from the engine going into one (usually 3") pipe (the collector) which then will have a reducer to connect to the rest of the exhaust.
Here is the best photo I could get of the headers looking down between the valve cover and master cylinder
Which I did on a non-Cougar 351C in spring 1973…
Interesting. Those are “regular” headers. Have not heard of any of that style that do not require a drop bracket. Any idea of who makes them?
I looked at the mechanics invoice and it just says they got them from Summit Racing. It doesn’t specify the brand or model number.
Looks like they could be these
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/pte-h8408-b/overview/year/1970/make/mercury/model/cougar
or these
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/dou-d670a4-r/overview/year/1970/make/mercury/model/cougar
They both say they need the bracket. I remember the mechanic telling me they had the bracket, but didn’t install it because they didn’t need to. I’ll see if I can crawl under there today and get a picture from the bottom of the bracket.
Looking at these photos I just took, it looks like maybe the only reason they didn’t need the drop bracket is because the cylinder is missing its boot.
