Headers for my 78 Ranchero with a 351W

Jason,Congrats on your Ranchero purchase. If you are looking for more hp/tq, full length headers will be helpful, although they will add some frustrations along with their efficiency. The drawbacks could be: tighter fitting to steering gear and/or starter, transmission case, transmission selector cable, noisier engine operation(exhaust of course) and etc. My honest suggestion is keep the manifolds unless one/both is cracked, if that is the case headers are usually cheaper than buying a new exhaust manifold. I run Hooker headers on my '79 BB Ranchero but that was due to not finding "good" exhaust manifolds, cam selection and porting the heads(an iron BBF head needs all the exhaust help it can get ). The biggest issues with headers are leaks, but using the "right" gaskets makes all the difference. Not sure if this was helpful or not, just being honest.

Edited by aquartlow - 27-September-2017 at 9:37AM

Hello aquartlow,

n2fordwagons wrote: Hood from a 77-79 Tbird, Cougar, LTD II, and Ranchero are all the same.

jason i went with JBA #1653S headers on my 351W  they fit pretty well (they aren't cheap--but nice quality!!)

n2fordwagons wrote: aquartlow wrote: n2fordwagons wrote: Hood from a 77-79 Tbird, Cougar, LTD II, and Ranchero are all the same.   Jeff,  If my memory serves me correctly, the 77-79 T-bird/Cougar hoods are a match & the 77-79 LTD II/Ranchero hoods match, but not all 4 will match each other.     That's right.  It's the doors that are all interchangeable, as long as it's 2-door Cougars and LTD IIs.  Thanks for catching that.

papadeath wrote: I shoulda checked closer to the date on this post. You know I wound up buying some headers from fordpowertrain that with the ceramic coating I added cost close to 900 bucks. They lied to me and told me they were specially made for the 460 ranchero yet that had Lincoln stamped on the flange... Go figure, a real pita to install and to top it off, I wound up having to cut part of my upper a-arm out for fitment. They also hit the steering gearbox. They're also sorties, with a very radical angled collector that strange to me was throttled to maybe 2 1/2 before it swelled back to 3 inch. I have had them for maybe 5 years and they have not rusted due to the coating. I have a def increase in hp and torque, but I know there's lots more in a better design. Don't buy them. And Todd, sure there's going to be more noise, but that's what we want right??

My FPA headers (they were already on my '76 Ranchero when I bought it) are indeed now touching the steering box (I swapped to a Saginaw quick-ratio box), and two of the tubes (#1 and #4, I believe) had to be dimpled where they touched the crossmember.

These were supposed to be the Ranchero-specific 429/460 headers but they look like they were for another application.