Steering column interference with race headers

Trial fitting some race headers. The steering column shaft is hitting the top of cylinder 7. At the coupler, the shaft is about 1/2" too high. I'm thinking about lowering the engine, raising the steering box, and/or dimpling the header pipe. any thoughts ?

Car Craft (I Believe) did a test and dimpling a header had no effect until they got really radical. Lots easier than lowering the engine or raising the steering box which could cause steering geometry problems.

It's just hard to beat on headers, but I put a pretty healthy dip in them and opened up the mounting holes. Now it's about 1/4" off center. I'm going to keep working it, but even if I get it closer, there will still be an angle between the coupler CL and the steering shaft CL.......

I would buy a piece of mandrel bent tubing then cut and move the tube.

I agree move the tube. Pretty easy to do. Couple bends trim and weld.
Doug

If I had a tig welder, I think I'd do that. I'm going to bend the pipe down, and bend it back up out at the collector. I only need to move it an 1/8" at the interference.

Cut it , fit it, tack it. Then have some one Tig it. I've even Migged them with good results.
Doug

There is a good bit of adjustability where the steering column attaches to the firewall, have you used all of it up??

Joe

X3, a new piece of header pipe

X4 cut and replace. Additional consideration - engine movement under acceleration will raise that #7 horizontal pipe even more, Fix it right, compromised steering not worth it.

There is an episode of Engine Masters where they beat crap out of a set of header with no real loss of power so just wacking would probably be okay. However the other solutions offered would certainly be more elligant.

Is it just an optical illusion or is the steering shaft tapered? I thought most were straight. Does it have a power steering to manual adapter.

Good luck with it all.

The adjustment at the firewall won't help the shaft position at the coupler. So the steering box had some slop in the mounting holes, so I pushed it up. Also bent the pipe around some. This allowed me to connect it all up. The shaft slightly touches, but no pressure. That being said, I agree the right way is to re-route the pipe. But I'm not going to mess with it, so I'm going to call who built them and see if I can just send the one pipe back to him. They are used headers and I was going to re-coat them anyway. After working on this car for 10 yrs I'm running out of gas, but I'm close though. Thanks for the feedback. and happy new yr. to all

Brian

No, it's straight. It was a power steering shaft and I modified it for a manual box. No adapter, just a different coupler.

I'm thinking of a combo move...a little dent in the tube, a shim or 2 under the steering box and perhaps a universal joint of some kind.

I've already put a sizable dent in it and moved the box up. It's already on it's way back to the guy who built them. They were originally built for a car with a motor plate in super stock, motor is moved around in that class. I'm using regular motor mounts, with a torque strap.