53 Stude/LS1 Engine Fitting cont. 2 - Dec 25, 2005

Well the good news is the we positioned the motor far enough forward so the alternator fits with just the right amount of clearance. The bad news is moving the motor forward has made the exhaust -- steering conflict much worse. I had a street rod club member, who is pretty good at modifying and fabricating headers, come over and we brainstormed our (actually MY) options. The passenger side shorty header fits just fine, but the drivers side has the collector totally on top of the steering box. The 3/4 of an inch the motor moved forward to gain clearance for the alternator has had a huge impact. There is no way that header will work and none of the cast iron manifolds I have will fit either. I have searched the various LS1 header vendors looking for one that has a collector pretty far back and found that Sanderson has one that looks pretty good. So I have ordered the Sanderson headers, got a pretty decent deal for the base metal versions. Once we have them modified, I can send them back to Sanderson and they will ceramic coat them for me for $120. Not a bad deal at all.