Rust. Mild steel will rust inside, even if coated. Some of the rust scale will end up back in the cylinder.

Heat conduction. SS doesn't conduct heat as well. More heat stays in the exhaust gas.

Plus you can use 18 gauge tube.

16 gauge set, 30", 2.125 d, with 3/8" full flange and a merge collector is heavy. No doubt.

3/8 Flanges with added center bolts, no gaskets. 1 7/8" 321 stainless tube. Made a poor choice of having them ceramic coated. Burned off after the first few launches. Very expensive even doing it all myself. Worth every cent. Never needed any repairs even with torturous zero degree launch strategies.

looks like to me that you are tempting fate with those extruded aluminum Crane rocker arms and using springs between them instead of shims and spacers
Murphy would have burnt any rig I worked on with twin turbos and solid roller cams with those rockers arms on my builds to the ground

broke more than one exhaust rocker… that pic was to show the exhaust flange with center studs between the ports.

I also elongated the shafts using those stock hold downs

Wish I could link picts but I’m fortunate to live 50 miles from REF Unlimited home of “headers while you wait”. I’ve had Greg do two sets of pipe. Drop off at 7am, pickup by 2-3….. dudes an artist.

got you both covered…

I see some weight savings on your intake manifold bolts.....LOL

Joe

I KNOW you guys are just lightly jabbing or even adding constructive criticism but, it can read harsh. I just don't want to discourage ANYONE from posting pics. We can all gain from it. Thanks for adding to the thread again!

While definitely not a Mopar thought I would share some more headers. Vettes old small, pump gas street car headers to it's current racey ones This is a stock front end car, stock steering, control arms and frame rails.

Street car days


Current headers

Ovaled tube in the second pic is interesting. You ever talk to someone at one of the big race shops about the effects of doing that? Maintaining the area as opposed to just beating a dent in it seems a better solution. Just wonder if it hurts it. Sometimes you just have to make it fit.

Many other changes to those heads between those two pics. The last revision before the new headers was to move the exhaust valve guide/valve over to make more room for the largest intake valve we could get in that small chamber. The entire exhaust port was then reshaped for a much smaller valve. All the work was done by Slawko of course. But good catch FWIW these headers were done by REF in Kingman, Greg and the guys have YEARS of experience with everything from bracket stuff to comp. We hold the shop record for the longest amount of time a car has spent in the shop getting headers made. It was there 4.5 days. As Jay pointed out most stuff is in at breakfast and done by lunch or shortly there after.

interesting reading for sure. Im making some fender exits now and its funny that to make them equal length in a tight space it requires a few "loops" I have been instructed that loops and bends are restrictive. Make them short and fewer bends instead of equal length and a lot of bends...ill post up some pics later tonight for all to see my

.

I used to have the magazine this article was in originally, but just came across it online. It may be from 2003, but I believe most of the info is still pertinent. LINK

Came with car and the inner fenders were already cut

It’s a start , I’m no professional