[henesian]

Hi, We live in California, and we have a 1976 Trans Am that originated from New York. Because, we still have to get the car smog checked every 2 years, I have some questions about exhaust. Fortunately, because the car is out of state, we can get away with a few things. However, currently, it has an 8:1 Pontiac 400 with an Edelbrock Performer manifold, a mild Crane Energizer 272 cam(216/216 at 0.050" and .454/.454 lift), stock gigantic starter, stock 6x heads with the stock D-Port exhaust manifolds and stock crossover pipe to a Dynomax 2.5" Crossflow system. Obviously, the big choke is the stock exhaust manifolds and the stock crossover pipe. The car is going to stay a street car, but also be an AutoX car, so I'm not looking to build a great street/strip motor out of it.

I know that we can run 3-tube headers or Ram Air 3 manifolds. I'm pretty sure 4-1 headers are out of the question, but I'm not totally sure.

Does anybody have an F-body T/A with a similar setup and Ram Air 3 manifolds, and how do they fit?

Does anybody have an F-body T/A with a similar setup and 3-tube headers, and how do they fit?

Note: The car has no problem passing smog, we have a Q-jet set up just for smog checks .

Thanks, Stephen Henesian

[Don 79 TA]

if 3 tubes are good why aren't 4 tubes?
I run the RA manifolds on my 79 TA with no problems with 2.25 tubes
at the time the 2.5's weren't available

[JC455]

Stephen,
You can't run three tube headers unless they have an EO# on them (no one makes them, that I'm aware of). A R/A III manifold would *almost* do the trick... the problem is on the drivers' side- you need an EFE valve. You could attach one into the head pipe vs. attached to the manifold, and I'd bet the smog folks would be none the wiser, then replace the cat w/ a high flow 3" unit and it'd run much better. But it'd almost be easier to get a set of Ron's Tri-Y headers (see his post in the exhaust section) and run duals, then change them out when it's smog time.