I am setting up the front end of my roadster and it has come down to steering linkage and headers Headers first: I bought a lakes headers kit for my Flathead from Speedway and need to know some basic angles to go by. Like what is the sharpest angle you would exit the header flange. If straight out is zero, could I angle the pipe 15°, 30°? What would be reasonable without screwing up the flow too much. I know zero would be best, but I may not have enough clearance for that. Also any advice on how to make the right cuts and how to get the primaries to flow nicely into the cone shaped collector would be appreciated Steering linkage: I am going with a 4 bar setup and much of it will be custom. I was planning to use 5/8 rod ends for everything, but I don't know how well they would hold up for the steering part of the deal. I mean the drag link and tie rod ends will be moving back and forth constantly, would it be better to used the standard tapered stud tie rod end? Dave
My only expieriance with rod ends is on race cars where they tend to wear out, freeze up and go out-of-round rather quickly. Personally, I wouldn't use them on any part of the suspension or steering on a street car.
So what would you use in place of rod ends on a race car? I understand your concern about a race car, but this car won't see any thing close to the punishment a race car would see. I may get as much as 3000 miles per year on paved roads. Same question here, what would you use instead of rod ends? tapered stud tie rod ends?
Flatrod, If you inspect a stock Flathead exhaust manifold; any angle you need would be a great improvement. Knock your self out. .....Bob
I see lots of t-bucket stuff for sale using spherical rod ends. Maybe you could get some real world opinions on bearing life from NTBA. I kind of like the normal tapered ends because they have grease zerks, they're cheap and you can get them everywhere. You can get a tapered reamer from Speedway. Spherical rod ends are the normal bearing for 4-bars, which are also constantly moving, though not nearly as much. I think either way would be acceptable. My $.02. Chris
That is what we use on race cars and we just change them often, which is just part and parcel of race car maintainance ($). I have to disagree that road use is less abusive: potholes,curbs repeted stop and go, all contribute greatly to wear and tear. Yes, I would use std. ford tie rod ends on the steering. Keep them greased and they will last forever. On the 4-bars I would use the common urethane bushings. Think of it this way: If rod ends were the best thing to use for steering linkage wouldn't all the cars rolling off the ***y. lines in Detroit have them?
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