Series 60 Headers

I'm glad to hear that you've never had a cracked exhaust manifold on a series 60. I'm seriously overjoyed.

Maybe I should have been more specific in my original post. The question is directed to anyone that might have real information, not so much someone that can make up answers. I can find those kind of replies on CB.

 

Aww, bless your heart. Are you not getting enough attention?

I'm still waiting for an intelligent answer from someone in the know and not just a steering wheel holding troll with no more technical knowledge than to tell people "That's not possible because I haven't seen it done".

Here, maybe this will help:
http://image.trucktrend.com/f/53492...-power-mike-ryan-freightliner-super-turbo.jpg

So, let's recap. The question was, why are there no commercially available headers for the series 60. So far, we've heard from a few jolly souls with some interesting posts, a few jerks with absolutely nothing productive to add, a few speculations that MIGHT be the reason (and good food for thought and discussion), but still no real answer.

For those that may not know, the series 60 is a Detroit with its very own specific list of problems. One of which is a cast iron 3 piece manifold that were designed with a wall thickness that's far too thin. As a result they're notorious for cracking (without overheating). Pittsburg Power sells a redesigned manifold with thicker walls, thicker webbing in the center, tighter clearances between the joints and jet hot coated.

During a visit to Pittsburg Power I met with the guys responsible for the research and development there and asked about why there were no off the shelf headers for the series 60. I also asked if it were a weight/vibration issue that may require excessive brackets or a size constraint issue. Those points were quickly dismissed. The reason given that THEY haven't done it yet is because 1) they didn't think about it yet and 2) they're selling a lot of the Full Tilt manifolds. Most PP products are rebranded products from amother vendor (a lot of mom and pop shops).

 

Headers by nature send more heat through the pipe and don't "soak" like manifolds do. That's partly because of design but also because of the material used. The turbo isn't powered by heat. It's powered by volume and velocity of exhaust gasses. If you have an exhaust restriction that will create more heat before the restriction AND a reduction in power. Free up that restriction and exhaust temps go down and more power happens. We can call that "efficiency".

If the temps are so high that were melting steel to the point of it being flemsy we've probably set some wiring or air lines on fire and need to pull over.

I think that when some people hear "headers", images of nearly rusted through, cheap, auto parts store variety headers with blown gaskets on a ford or chevy are conjured up.

Btw, blown gaskets are caused by 2 things: thin flanges and/or uneven mating surface(s) on the cylinder heads. Overtightening is often blamed but that goes back to thin (cheap) flanges.

Different steel alloys will rust at different rates. Some will only get surface rust/oxidation like cast iron.

Cast iron is far more porous than steel and also not as maleable. It tends to break instead of flex or bend like steel. Have you ever wondered why truck frames aren't built out of cast iron?

In the case of the SBC with no 50lb turbo hanging off of it: it was once a common problem for people to use "one size fits all" headers on a camaro only to slam them down hard on a speed bump because they were hanging too low. Did they break? No but it would bend the hell out of the collector.