From 1988, until last year, I hauled my drag cars to and from the tracks on a 1974 F350 DRW "cab abd chassis" with a 16 foot steel car hauler/ramptruck deck. The first 2 years I used the stock 360 2 barrel, and in that time , I had 3 exhaust manifolds crack and leak. So when I decided to replace the 360 with a 390 4 barrel engine from a 1976 F250 that I did a cheapo rebuild on, in 1990, I installed a new set of Hedman headers at the same time. My Hedmans were just the basic painted versions, with 3 bolt collector rings. The factory applied black paint burnt off almost instantly, and I never repainted them, but they never gave me any issues, other than a couple of blown out collector gaskets , over 15 years. I replaced them in 2005, because I was was replacing the steering box and a bunch of steering and front suspension stuff, as well as the old dual exhaust system was falling apart. And although the Hedmans were looking pretty crusty, they were still quite solid. I would have bought new Hedmans, but nobody locally had them in stock, but FlowTechs were available, so I bought a pair of those. The FlowTechs looked almost identical to the Hedmans, Both sets fit nicely, and in 25 years, I only ever had to replace 1 starter motor, so I don`t consider the long tube headers to of any concern to to starter life. The fellow racer that bought my truck last year says the truck still runs great, and the FlowTech headers are now 10 years old, so they should good for a few years yet.My 74 had a NP435 4 speed, and both brands of headers fit the clutch linkage fine. If I ever own another 67-76 pickup with a FE engine, I would not hesitate to buy either brand of headers again. Also, although the Hedman catalog said that the headers did not fit a Camper Special model, I`m assuming due to the front sway bar that fits in between the front radius rods, I installed a Camper Special sway bar on my F350, and both sets of headers had plenty of room to the sway bar.
