After over 20 years with the original hugger headers made by Mike The Pipe in England I had to get new headers – they developed many cracks around the collector area. I got a new set of huggers from D&D Fabrication for our trip to Nova Scotia.

We made it part way through the trip when the passenger side header cracked just below the collector area were the bend down toward the side of the engine. Had that fixed and then the driver side cracked in the same place. Had that fixed. Then the passenger side broke again. Then I was done. The material on the new huggers was a bit thinner than the old huggers. That and the fact that I heat wrapped them was probably the problem along with the fact that the new exhaust put on by The Muffler Shop in Fairport didn’t allow for any movement.

So this time I ordered RV8 headers from TSI. Took almost 2 months to get them but they came in and they look very good. Heavier material than the huggers were. Also all the headers I found available hugger or not were for the Buick not the Olds. The Olds heads have 5 bolts per cylinder the Buick has 4 but more importantly the bolts on the Olds are proud of the exhaust plane while on the Buick they are recessed. I had to grind the stabilizer plate so it would fit. Here’s some pics:

Manifold plane of the Olds.

You can see the bolts protruding. Also needed to open it up to get a spark plug socket on.

Used a marker to mark out what needed to be removed.

After the grinding is done.

The gasket on the left was one right over from getting the last set from Parts Geek. The one on the left is what came with the new header. I bit of modification made them much easier to put in.

Fitted on – worked out OK – just needed a size adapter and a 4″ flex piece.

None of the local muffler places had an opening for over a munth so it was time to learn how to weld muffler pipes. I got much better by the end of it 🙂 But no leaks – that’s the important part.

Also had to move the front brake line – it originally was exactly behind the collector and an 1/8″ behind – probably not good to boil the brake fluid.