I recently picked up a set of NOS Belond Headers from Clark at Porter Mufflers (Alliance vendor) for my '56 Fairlane Yblock. Does anyone else Belond Headers on their car/rod? I wanted to put something on the Ford that were close to what would be used on an AG-era rod, I think these tubestyle headers are early 60s - does anyone know for sure? Seems Belond headers haven't been around for awhile. I noticed any earlier post here about them but didn't have much details. I hadn't heard of them until recently so did some 'net surfing and found a great article on some of the guys back in the early days - interesting how they got started, and how some are now legendary. A lot of you folks probably already know about some of these guys, it's a very interesting article: http://books.google.com/books?id=iC...X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA112,M1 Anyone else using Belond headers - got pics?
Belond made headers in the late 50s-early 60s. They may have made them into the mid 60s but by then full length headers were becoming increasingly popular, such as Hedman, M/T, Hooker, etc... Most of the Belond headers were 'passenger car' headers. Meaning that they were an improvement over stock manifolds (to some degree) but by no means a full race header as we are familar with today. I have seen a couple of sets for early Olds, and one for 322 Nailhead but not much else. I think they are very accurate if you are trying to build a 1962ish era car. Now, you just need to get the right sounding mufflers...
Sandy Belond was a racer from the 50's He had lived in Karl & Veda Orr's shop for a while with his wife Ruth. He raced Midgets and Sprints and his cars won the Indy 500 In 56 & 57 as the Belond Exhaust Special and was making his "Equiflow Exhaust Systems" (Headers) and did quite well with them. Ray Brown's liner set records at Bonneville with a Hemi at over 236 mph with the first Hilborn Chrysler injector and Belond Exhaust. By 1961 He was doing quite well with the exhaust business and put up the money to be a 2/3 owner of the old Carlsbad Ca Raceway until 1981 when his health started failing and he sold out his share by 1986. Once Gary Hooker, Bob Hedman, Headers by Doug, Jerry Jardine and others came along it seems the Belonds kind of disappeared. He is a member of the SEMA Hall of fame and passed away a few years later.
Thanks for the input. Yes about the mufflers. Seems there are more opinions about them than options. And since there seems to be a link between Archie Porter and Sandy Belond I'll probably go with Porters. I was too young to remember what my brother had on his '56 Ford back then but it sounded great. Several mufflers that are still available would be correct for the period.
In '46 Sandy Belond invented the tuned lenght header for use on Ford V8 60 sprint cars. The equal lenght tubes came together in what was the invention of the merge collector as we know it today. I got this info from Bob Falcon a highly regarded Indy car mechanic with many racing patents to his name and he helped build cars for Sandy in the 40's. This was also verifiend by Gene Ellis and Otto Rysmann, might be wrong spelling on Otto's last name.
from what I have been told Sandy also went on to work for and design at the old Appliance Plating Headers in the 60's.
Nice touch I was having a little difficulty finding out what the A-P, Sandy sold his business to stood for. So maybe it was Appliance Plating. I'll ask around and see. I don't think he went to work for them though. Perhaps he helped them with the transition into ownership of the Southern California Muffler Company. I was told he was approached in '61 about the property Carlsbad Raceway was to be built on. I am pretty sure he was retired by that time and they opened the raceway in '64. He did however open Belond Manufacturing in the Carlsbad area around the time the raceway was opened .
I was told by a guy who has been in the header business since the 60's that Sandy did work for Appliance Plating and was involved in design and other aspects of the business. According to the guys who owned Carlsbad Raceway, Sandy was definitely an owner (Partner) of the track. They started with he project in 61 and he remained active until 81 ultimately selling out in 86. Both of these are from pretty reliable sources.
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