This week was header week, and I had hopes at the beginning of the week of getting the headers completed by today. Unfortunately real life intervened again, with my attention being required on several other projects, including my book. I haven't talked about the book much in this blog, but in a nutshell after sending it off for printing at the beginning of January, I got my 1000 copies back on January 31. The pictures in the book did NOT look good, and there were some obvious printing defects, like lines through the photos and variations in the darkness of the print. I complained immediately, but it took a solid 6 weeks to finally get some action out of the printing company. They agreed to reprint the book at no cost, but suggested that the printing method that I used and the paper that I had selected were not ideal for good quality black and white photos. They suggested a different type of press and paper (more money, of course), but I agreed because I didn't want to go through this whole mess again, in case the press and paper really were limiting factors. This week they sent me another proof, so I had to spend a couple of days reviewing that. I decided at the same time that I wanted to change the contrast and brightness in some of the photos to improve the look of the proof, so I spent Wednesday and Thursday night revamping about 30 photos. Friday I sent off the revised file, and will probably get another proof at the end of next week. Then, hopefully, the book will finally get printed correctly.
Saturday I had a couple of machining projects to finish up, which I thought would only take a couple hours but ended up taking all day. One of them was preparation for my son's Boy Scout meeting on Monday night; the troop is coming over to my shop to see a demonstration of what machine tools are and how they work. I wanted to be prepared to have the Scouts machine something that they could take home, and it took me longer to set that up than I originally anticipated. But at least Monday night should go well.
Sunday I finally got back to working on the car. I started with the driver's side header, and had a bunch of mandrel bent J-bends on hand to make the pipes. I'm using a stepped header design with 2 1/8" to 2 1/4" to 2 3/8" pipes, plus a slip on collector. I stared at the car for a while to try to visualize where everything was going to go, and then started on the first pipe. I've probably built 15 sets of headers in my life, and after coming up with a basic strategy for each side I've found that the best thing to do is dive in and start cutting and fitting.
Cutting to the chase, eight hours later I had the driver's side done, with the exception of the 2 1/8" pipe from cylinder #8 to the 2 1/4" pipe coming up from the collector. I could have done that one, but I was trying to maintain equal length and this tube would have been a good 6" longer than the rest if I'd built it with the pipes on hand. I figured out that if I bought some of those exhaust pipe donuts from the Chassis shop I could cut at least 5" out of the first 2 1/8" pipe, bringing it into line with the rest of the pipes for length. So, I've left that pipe for now, and will order the donuts tomorrow.
Here's a couple of photos of the left side header; you can see the missing primary on #8, and in the background the 2 1/4" pipe that it needs to meet up to coming up from the collector, in the first picture:
I'm sure I can get the left side header finished up and the right side header done next week, but I'd really like to get them done before 4:00 or so on Saturday, because Steve and Jerry are coming over again next Saturday night. We're going to get the new doors hung on the car, and hopefully get the front clip on and adjusted, plus the rear taillight panel, trunk lid, and end caps on and adjusted. With that done, and the headers finished, I'm on to the next project, which will be a sheet metal intake manifold for the car. I've given myself most of April in my schedule to get the sheet metal intake built, installed, and then dyno the engine. May is going to be bodywork and paint month, and June will be assembly. Maybe on the road by July...
