I have a 69 xr-7 and I want shorties, just not sure what fits. As most of know, there’s not a lot of space for much. It has the 351w. Any help with my dilemma is always appreciated
I have Sanderson shorties on my 1969 with a 351 Cleveland. I’ve got manual brakes with later model Mustang MC, hydraulic clutch actuation, and rack & pinion steering. I did notch and patch a portion of the collector area on the drivers side header to clear the lower U-joint on the steering rack.
Have Doug’s headers D669Y tri y’s on 69 351W in my 68. No clearance issues with C4. Did a swap to AOD in the fall and did the swap without touching the exhaust.
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I used FPA headers on my 351w 4 speed 69. They fit great but the coating flaked off after a few years.
Thank you all, for your input. I’m anxious to get mine done and back on the road.
Done? I do not know this word as it relates to my Cougar!
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IF YOU REALLY LOVE YOUR 69, don’t bother with headers.
WHY?
Unless you are doing an all out build with flat top pistons, hogged out exhaust ports and a new cam to work with the better breathing exhaust, you are wasting time and money, now and in the future!
How to you waste time and money? Let me count the ways that I lost time and money doing this to a 351W in my car…while not gaining more than a tenth of a second at the drag strip…
*Lower compression 2V pistons: Work better with garbage gas. No HP increase.
*HiPo 289-ish grind cam. Great idle, just announcing I’m not stock…but not rude idle.
*Repaired bad frame points where power steering ram drop bracket dorked up frame.
*Replace steering ram drop bracket several times as they break…
*MULTIPLE sets of header gaskets both at the heads and at the exhaust pipes.
*Modifying exhaust system…cuz nothing fits really nice…
*Spark plug access restricted on drive side… PITA!
*Absolutely no change in exhaust tone…from stock manifolds…with remaining stock exhaust.
*Noisy exhaust leaks…seemingly never ending… see point 3 up…
IF I was going to do it all again, I would open up the restrictive SBF exhaust ports in the heads to match a slightly larger and uniform gasket opening, then open up the 351W exhaust manifold ports to match the gasket, blending the entry point into the manifold about 3/8 of an inch. Use a good 2-1/4" exhaust system out to the non-restrictive mufflers and tail pipes out back, and be VERY HAPPY!!!
You will spend MORE time out driving and LESS time working on fixing stupid problems that keep happening! Your exhaust note will have manners now as well! Just like a Cougar…quiet when moving slowly thru the neighborhood, but roaring when you take off!
OK, you can ignore this if you are building an all out drag car… but as normal this is simply my opinion based upon experiences that I have had while driving the car daily, and putting on some 150K miles or so… Stock manifolds would have been so nice to keep looking back…!. Next version will have some sort of cast iron manifolds if I can help it!
Make your modifications to meet the needs of your driving habits.
Cheers!
Steve
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Wow!!!
I gotta say steve,you gave me some great input. I know that I have a small exhaust leak on the drivers side but when it warms up, it goes away. It is a 4 bbl and I will be changing the heads to aluminum so that is when I will match the heads to it. I also plan a bigger cam, nothing to crazy but a bit more aggressive. And I am running glass packs so the tone is nice. I had the hi-po 289 cast exhaust on my first 69 cougar and was thinking about going that way again. So now I’m thinking, thanks Steve 
.
Good to hear that you have a plan!!!
If you look at your old HiPo exhausts…compare them to the stock 351W manifolds… See what ya think…where did Ford get the idea for the W versions??? Other than a little difference on the RH side, they look darn close!!! Good flowing cast iron headers!
I’ve often listened to BowTie LS engines with cast iron exhausts and they still sound awesome and breath like crazy! Butt again, if you aren’t all out racing, you can still get good awesome street performance and eliminate some pain in the long run!
One of the BEST SBF’s I ever built was a 331 stroker out of a 5L block. Got roller lifters out of the deal, used flat top pistons along with Ford Racing alloy heads Y303 series, and ended up with a 10,3:1 or so CR. The alloy heads will allow you to run higher compression than cast iron as the alloy heads shed heat like crazy! You can use a 351W Performer to pretty much duplicate the performance of the stock cast iron intake with carb spacer ,which was one of the BEST stock jobs Ford ever did!!! Old magazine articles mention that aftermarket intakes did very little to improve performance over the stock version and that the Ford engineers had done their homework!!!
Out of my little 331 with the biggest cam in the FRP book, about a 512 lift or so, (with 1.7? ratio rockers for a little more lift!) and the wider overlap (12 degrees) gave it a very smooth stately idle that purred…but screamed when you hit the go pedal!!! Some 2.25 (3" tall) Flowmasters would work fantastic with this setup.
I ended up with over 300HP at the rear wheels in the car I had it in!!! That meant about 400HP at the crank. With a manual trans, this was a crazy good combo! I also had a smaller 580 Holley carb (newer series…hah…ten or so years back!) that once jetted on a dyno tune, was fantastic!!! Probably the only carb I have ever had work so well when the secondaries kicked in!!!
I port matched the Ford alloy heads to the intake gaskets and then to the intake but only the first 1/2" or so into the manifold. Just need the ports to line up so no turbulence. Do NOT polish the runners smooth. That would dork up cold and warm running as you need the tiny bumps to mix up the air/fuel mixture a bit! All out racing needs the butt smooth polish job…not on the street!
Did similar to the exhaust, matching head ports to the header ports and gasket. Only enuf material to smooth entry/exit to neighboring device…ie header or manifold.
A good “Blue Module” DuraSpark ignition system with the 10 degree retard at cranking allows you to set the initial timing to about 16 degrees, dial in 8-10 mechanical advance, and 8-10 vacuum advance for a total advance of aprox 34 degrees max!
(I didn’t use a vacuum advance so dialed in 26 degrees of initial advance, which was fine when the Duraspark retarded the 10 degrees at start to about 16. Most would balk at this, but it worked FANTASTIC! 18-19 MPG at 70+ down the road in overdrive)
You can also do a “rough balance” of your pistons if you get them new off of the rods before rebuilding, to at least check the weights…will likely be with in tenths of grams! But the rods can be a different story, but you can balance them also using a triple beam scale and a pointy piece to “hang the rods from” and check it both ways ie small ends should all be close, large ends also close, AND the final weight should then be pretty darn close too! IF not remove weight from the big end. This is all you can generally do at home… If changing toooo much in terms of components, by all means, have your shop do it.
Check your 351W harmonic balancer for movement of the outer ring which can happen on older parts. Make sure your timing mark “0” lines up with the TDC of piston #1!!!
Some pics for you!
Steve
