Folks Of Interest SANDERSON HEADERS are junk, who else had problems?

my sanderson headers that broke on me 1350 miles from home. had to borrow some guys cheap welder. called sanderson about them, the lady on phone said my car was running too rich and thats why they broke. sanderson can kiss my crack.


i have over $700. in these headers and i think sanderson should have replaced them.

 

be careful guys they are an Alliance Vender

 

i would say maybe running lean but not rich??? theres been discussions before about there customer service.....so are they going to do anything?

 

How long have you had them? They look pretty rusty for new headers.

 

there not new now. they were new when they broke. the car sits outside and gets driven year round. its my daily ride

 

Looks to me like a poorly supported exhaust system has caused stress and the cracking is a result of vibration.
you really have to have a solidly mounted system to run that style of header, unless the material they are made out of is really thin, i think the problem lies with the way the rest of the system is mounted.
The way they are so far out from the heads where the down tube attaches is the root of the problem..simple physics .

It definitely has nothing to do with mixture..so you're right on that level, they are full of shit on that one!

 

there not going to do anything about them. i just get pissed when ever i look at them and was wondering if anyone else had problems with there headers

 

A majority of the rust might be from him griding down to bare metal to weld them back up. You can kind of the the splatter.

 

there is a mount a lil past the turn down and mounted with rubber bushings

 

the metal is way to thin

 

Yup...exhaust too tight. No flex = cracking.

Hide a couple of those flexible braided exhaust pipes under the car so the engine can torque without stressing the next set of headers. The ultimate cure would be a set of factory Rams horns for a driver...but those flexible pipes and thoughtful placement will help a lot.

 

You can see rust around all the flanges.

 

Didn't really look at the last picture, thanks for pointing that out to me. How long have these been on your car?

 

ive seen two set at swapmeets this summer that were the same way.

 

I've used Sanderson Headers on several cars, my own and customer cars and different styles of headers also and never had a problem, they fit good and the quality is alright. I'll keep buying them.

 

Sanderson still sucks either way, most of their header flanges I've seen are warped right out of the box, the material is pretty thin and for what you're paying to have them, you're getting cheap header quality...and bad customer service (or maybe they're magic, because I've never heard of anyone that can diagnose a motor running too rich causing header cracking over the phone)...besides, welds should never crack, ever...especially not in as many places as those things are cracking...to me it sounds like they've got inexperienced folks throwing welds on tubing with improper cooling of the weld afterwards making for brittle welds...I'd expect that kind of stuff from someone making their own headers in their garage, not a company making high end production headers...

 

what happens when you unflange the pipes?

 

Got the same set @ a swap meet. Guy had over $700 in them and they were Jet-Hot coated as well. Bought them @ Half of what he paid for them. Had to get them rewelded in those same areas. I have not tried to use them, I went to a Hemi Instead

 

looks like i'm not the only one with a bad set of sanderson headers

 

Similar experience here. One set didn't fit even after a detailed explaination of what parts I was running, and many assurances of proper fitment. The other set went on a car I still have, I the fit/finish kinda suck.

No more for me.

 

Not an experience with those kind,but when I had the '63 Caddy with stock 390,I was looking in to the headers they were making for the 390/429 Cadillac motors. Customer service sucked,as all they could tell me is that the design was based around a '66 Cadillac,which there are many differences between years and clearances around oil pans and steering boxes an all cars that use the 390 or 429. Apparently,on my Cadillac,I would have had to notch the oil pan to get them to fit. Also,they don't tell you that you need a custom alternator/generator mounting bracket either. I inspected a pair in person,and the headers seem a bit thin to me.

 

They seem to be the only game in town for what I was needing, headers for a 270 Hemi. Guess I will keep looking............................

 

My friend installed a brand new set of block huggers on his SBC and they leaked like hell because of warped flanges. he called Sanderson and they told him to use two sets of gaskets,LOL!!!. he told them if he intended on using double gaskets, he would have bought generic no-name $69 headers, not $300 sanderson's.

 

Any Lakes style pipes arent the way to go on any rod unless you don't drive your car! It's just a bad design, and most people don't know how to properly mount an exhaust system! It's not Sanderson that's the problem, it's just that style of headers!

 

Sanderson headers are the best out there in my humble opinion, I would say that the lime fire header is not designed to support a rigid exhaust. Based on the pics it look like the exhaust called the failure

 

My dad's car has had Sandersons on it for nearly 30 years. not a single issue.
I've got sandersons on mine now too, it's never been started yet but they were the only "factory" built that fit my application without modification.

 

Ok, first off I like cast manifolds best. that being said I have run three sets of Sanderson headers, two on Y-blocks one on an FE. Although not this style of header I have had nothing but good results. I don't know about their customer sevice since I have not had to call them, but I don't think anyone can diagnose a fuel mixture problem over the phone.

 

always had good luck with sanderson headers

 

if the exhaust made my headers to fail, then how do i make them work without the cracking? my exhaust pipes have 2 hangers, one on the front and one at the rear. there is no weight on the flange at all.

 

Not true,I've seen many people run them on rods that they drive alot!