BUILD THREAD JRP's '87 Regal Thread

[fleming442]

$550 is about the average price for headers, unless you're talking about the uber-cheep, offshore ePay jobbies.

 

[olds307 and 403]

Yeah, unfortunately $550 is the middle of the road these days. Cmon what is $550 in the 10 grand already spent? Seriously though, I am considering the Chinese stainless A body Olds headers. Well made, somewhat stainless steel, super thick flanges and fit very well. They will hang low on my SBO. I can get them cheaper shipped then garbage Flowtech headers with shipping extra. I gave away a set of Flowtech full length A body headers, shitty warping, thin flanges that needed double gaskets and rust pinholes and peeling of the ceramic at a year old. Glad I did or I would be using them on my current 70S.

 

[DRIVEN]

Guess it all depends on the flavor of the build. I'm inclined to give up a little power in favor of decreased underhood noise and increased resistance to leaks. Few things sound worse to me than header leaks. Plus I like the better ground clearance of factory manifolds.

That Hot Rod 350 was a nice combo. All that fat, flat torque right where you use it would be a perfect cruiser. Wonder how it would have differed with a Qjet?

 

[olds307 and 403]

Considering the Hot Rod build only had a 600 cfm carb, it is all the more impressive. I would bet the 750 Slayer would have added quite a few HP.

 

[joesregalproject]

$550 doesn't seem too unreasonable for headers, but as Driven pointed out, they can have some downsides. The extra noise is something I can live with, but they are a lot more leak prone and I don't want to deal with that. I may want to lower this car 2" or so at some point so ground clearance does have to be considered.

Also is there any good (lasting) way to paint headers other than ceramic coating? Nothing looks worse than rusty headers.

That Hot Rod build was cool and it really shows some of the performance potential of the Buick 350. I think a bigger q-jet would've helped it out a lot. These engines came with 800 cfm quadrajets from the factory.

 

[fleming442]

I've had pretty good luck with the VHT Flameproof header paint. I think there are also varying degrees of ceramic coating, and the stuff the header manufacturers use is on the bottom end of the spectrum. I've seen stuff that people have coated on their own that looks 1000x better than a precoated set of headers from a retailer.

 

[DRIVEN]

X2 on VHT. I use the "cast iron" finish on manifolds and it holds up pretty well. Turns a bit goldish as it ages. Eventually the rust will win though. I preheat the manifolds on a radiator style heater and give many light coats.

And after 3+ years of driving and sitting outside in all weather conditions. Would fair better used on an occasionally driven and always garaged vehicle.

I used VHT on the heat shields too.

I apologize if this clutters your thread. I'll remove/edit if you want. Just wanted to show the aging process.

 

[joesregalproject]

X2 on VHT. I use the "cast iron" finish on manifolds and it holds up pretty well. Turns a bit goldish as it ages. Eventually the rust will win though. I preheat the manifolds on a radiator style heater and give many light coats.
View attachment 127150

And after 3+ years of driving and sitting outside in all weather conditions. Would fair better used on an occasionally driven and always garaged vehicle. View attachment 127151
I used VHT on the heat shields too.

I apologize if this clutters your thread. I'll remove/edit if you want. Just wanted to show the aging process.

Not cluttering the thread at all, appreciated actually! I'll probably be referencing it later! The pictures just make it easier to find 😆

 

[joesregalproject]

I made some headway today getting the front clip removed. Wow is it a lot easier to take the fenders off with the inner fenders. I don't know why I didn't do that last time.

So I started by taking the front bumper off. Pretty simple. Then I removed the bumper fillers. Also pretty simple. Mine don't mount exactly the same as the factory ones because they are fiberglass and not perfectly shaped, plus I bought them used. Then I removed the header panel, again a simple piece to remove.

At that point I started unbolting the passenger fender. I began with the bolts connecting it to the header panel, and of course on the last one, the U nut breaks and the bolt just spins. I tried getting some vise grips on it, but it just continued to spin. There wasn't really any good access on this particular bolt, and being that my core support is already rusted (I found another rust hole on it btw), I decided to cut the core support so I could get access to it.

Yesterday I was fussing over a couple scratches, imagine what I was like taking a cutoff wheel right next to the paint!

Anyways, once I cut the access hole, I was able to cut the head off of the bolt and remove it. The back of the fender wasn't too bad, although despite my best efforts to avoid chips in the paint by masking the edges, I still managed to chip the edge of the door. I'll just have to touch it up once I've got the clip back on. The white splatter is just compound from sanding and buffing.

The driver's side fender went a little smoother. No chips in the paint, and no broken bolts. Then the core support just lifted right up after removing the two body bolts. And here's what is left.

Here's some of the reasons why I decided to go ahead and pull the whole clip-

Crusty firewall-

Crusty frame-

Crusty suspension parts-

Messy fuel lines-

Crusty cracked dried out seam sealer-

And hey GM, what the hell kinda booger welds are these? Lmao 🤣

And side note, the stuff that is on this piece that I cut out of the core support is all over the engine bay. I think it is old rustproofing that dried out. The car did have a Rusty Jones sticker on the rear quarter window when I got it. It's semi soft in some places and flakes off like bad paint in others. It was in the trunk too-

 

[Northernregal]

Stop looking, that's how you end up in the frame off rabbit hole....