Fordnatics List Archive

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Paul Rimmer)

Summary: I don't recommend Hedman Headers. If you are thinking about
installing headers, find a good quality (read expensive) set and go to it.
It's well within a backyard mechanic's ability.

Nitty Gritty: Well, what a hellish Saturday afternoon. I recommend that if
anyone is considering Hedman Hedders they look elsewhere. I've heard of
MACs QA problems but I bet Hedman is worse.

It started off great. Spent the morning cleaning the new headers with a
Dremmel and emery cloth. Friends arrived at 2 and we started taking off the
stock headers. Sprayed liberal amounts of WD40 before starting. Removed
the large rubber intake hose and rubber air hoses on passenger side to get
at bolts. Left sparkplugs in. Cleaned up around base of oil dipstick tube,
gently pulled the dipstick and tube out and plugged hole with paper towel.

By the way, when did Ford stop painting their engines? There was lots of
rust on the heads and block.

The only problem during removal was the passenger side collector flange
bolt, nearest the O2 sensor. Had to use a combination of universals,
extensions and a wrench to get it off. I put a small dent in the sensor
housing in the process, but I can't see it causing any problems. How do you
remove this sensor?

Scraped the old gasket material off the heads with a putty knife. Now I was
ready to put the new ones on. It went downhill rapidly from here.

Quickly found out that the engine lift brackets could not go back on, as
they would not fit around the bigger 1 5/8 tubes. The passenger side
bracket provides a mounting point for one of the Air tubes. This meant
leaving the Air tube unattached at this point (Yech!). Had to grind the
dipstick tube bracket to get it to fit also.

Even with a one piece flange the supplied 11mm bolts (very cheap) still
didn't line up. After much struggling we got all the bolts in except for one
on the passenger side. The tube was so close to this bolt that it would
not, no could not, go on. An Allen headed bolt would have been nice here
but we couldn't get hold of any. The only solution would have been to crimp
the header tube at this location to give the bolt room to turn. I won't
even talk about the fit of the header collector to the H-pipe flange.

At this point I decided to say screw it. I did not want these pieces of
*%$# touching my car, as I was sure they were cursed. I could have made
them fit, but I decided that I would rather put them back into the world of
newspaper classified sections and wait till I can afford some better quality
units that will bolt on without any bending, crimping or grinding. I did
get the opportunity to clean up my stock headers though. It only took 1.5
hours to remove the Hedmans and replace the factory units. If I had a well
made set, I belive I could get them on in a couple of hours, and I look
forward to the day I can try them out.

I highly recommend the Fel Pro steel backed gaskets. Also make sure you
have a good selection of socket extensions and universals on hand.

Thanks for all the advice.

Paul

PS For sale, one set of hand ported 1 5/8" Unequal Length Hedman Hedder
Paper Weights.

Paul Rimmer Software Engineer
Computing Devices Canada Communications Systems Division
Business: (email redacted) Home: (email redacted)
1993 Mustang 5.0L LX Hatch 5-Speed

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Dave Williams)


-> Summary: I don't recommend Hedman Headers. If you are thinking
-> about installing headers, find a good quality (read expensive) set
-> and go to it. It's well within a backyard mechanic's ability.

Expensive doesn't equate to good quality. Back in '81 we paid $265 for
some fancy aluminized Hooker headers that were guaranteed to fit, last
forever, and make us more attractive to members of the opposite sex. We
wound up cutting the crossmember and part of the fenderwell for
clearance, they rattled, leaked at their paper-thin flanges, dragged the
ground, the aluminum coating burned off after a month, and they rotted
through in a year. That was when you could pick up Blackjack or Cyclone
generic headers for $49.95.

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted)

Dave Williams writes:

>>Expensive doesn't equate to good quality. Back in '81 we paid $265 for
some fancy aluminized Hooker headers that were guaranteed to fit, last
forever, and make us more attractive to members of the opposite sex. We
wound up cutting the crossmember and part of the fenderwell for
clearance, they rattled, leaked at their paper-thin flanges, dragged the
ground, the aluminum coating burned off after a month, and they rotted
through in a year.<<

Yeah - but did it make you more attractive to members of the opposite sex?

<g>

-Tom

This read-only message was archived from a public mail list.
Mail From: (email redacted) (Dave Williams)


-> Yeah - but did it make you more attractive to members of the opposite
-> sex?

It was hard to tell - the header leaks kept them away in droves.