HEADERS ON A CLEVOR !

HEADERS ON A CLEVOR !

Well, this subject kept me up at night... 

What kind of exhaust will I put on my Clevor, what would be good and what would be bad.

Because the Clevor engine has basically the same V-shape as a Boss302 I decided to go with the Hooker Super Competition longtube Headers for a MT Boss302 ( not that there are automatic boss302's but okay ) 

Point to consider:

• Manual or Automatic because of Z-Bar location
• Manual or Power steering 
• Long Tubes - Shorties or stock manifolds

- Manual or Automatic transmission.

A manual transmission have a lot of pro's but also a few con's.
A great con in an oldskool set-up is the Z-bar / equalizer bar that needs a pivot point on the engine block mount. That means that the Z-bar needs to cross between the chassis and the engine and needs clearance to move free. MAJOR IMPORTANCE !
The Hooker header gave trouble with the original Z-Bar, but might have been better with the Boss bar, we have not tried that so this might work just fine.
Of course you can get an cable linkage or fluid type but hey... OLDSKOOL !

- Manual or Power-steering

In my case a major problem, if I held the original power steering the problem might have been a little less but anyway... with a steeroids rack & pinion set up it a BITCH ! The Hooker long tube headers WILL NOT fit, don't even try they wont fit.

We hammed the shit out of the tubes just to bent it... will - not - work !

Long Tubes - Shorties or stock manifolds

As you have read I choose the Hooker Super Competition headers Long Tubes headers because that where the closets thing to the Clevor shape, a Boss302.  351C headers would be okay but that was not my first choice. He who knows it all.........

There is enough to be read on the net about the pro's & con's on shortys and longtubes and of course the stock manifolds so I'm not going to discuss that.

Lets say the stock manifolds would gave us no problem at all, these where not an option on a performance engine. That would squeeze the performance with more then 25% and that's to much.

As you might have seen while building the headers gave us plenty of trouble so we decided to ditch these long tubes and order a set of shorty headers.

Great news, no one in Holland has them for sale and with an very short deadline we need to move fast ( and pay the price ! :D ) 

I found a set of shorty's on Sanderson Headers for a 351C 4V with reducer plates.

Part 2.

After receiving the Headers from Sanderson we picked up the build with the new parts.

( you can read this in installing the clevor pt2 )

Immediately after lowering the block back into the mustang we noticed that we had some new trouble.

It did not fit proper. The passenger side header made contact with the lower part of the shock tower ( where the motor mount is attached to ) and the rear part of header hit the quicktime bell-housing.

After some motivation with the hammer and improved the flow on it the back part did fit. the lower part need a little grinding.

 The collector hitting the bellhousing just a bit.

 with the exhaust connected.

Why didn't those headers fit you might ask ??

A Clevor has a different deck-height then a 351C Cleveland engine so the headers would be just a few Cm's ( Europe ) higher then on a Boss-style engine. The V-shape and the deck-height are of great importance to the header and exhaust location.

The Driver side did fit quit well, except for the fact that the collector and reducer where located on the worst place you could wish, just behind the steeroids set. This took some expert welding skills of my friend Michel to make this fit ( thanks for that Fransje ). 

The location of the collector is also of great importance to the equalizer bar. In our case we had to place the bar on an angle to leave clearance for the clutch. The fork pin as also place on the opposite side of the Z-Bar because the normal side gave also trouble with the headers.

 here you can see the collector behind the bellhousing.

 Just over the steeroids set with some additional wrapping to prevent melting.

 Here you see also the Equalizer bar with the springs and its tight fit.

All things considered we came to the following conclusion.

"Nothing fits normally on a clevor engine and its quit a challenge to make everything fit properly. 

There are NO headers on the market that will fit on a clevor with a steeroids steering set and a equalizer bar without some extra care. With a normal power steering or even manual transmission it would be a hell of a lot easier and I would suggest to go with a cable of hydraulic clutch in stead. "

Niels