Sorry for the lapse in response time from my normal. My company has a plant shutdown between Christmas and New Years and I use this time to get a lot of things completed (or at the very least started...[&:]).

This year, I have been working on my Blazer. Yesterday I completely removed the exhaust system in preparation for headers and a new exhaust system. The removal was easy. While I have everything out, I ran a compression test. Things looked quite good with the lowest cylinder being 120psi and the highest 136psi. Average was 129psi so all cylinders are within +/- 10% of the average. The motor seems healthy from this aspect. I would have liked to do a leak down test to assess the condition of the rings and valves, but I cannot find my leak down tester. I think I left it out at my dads place the last time I was checking out his old truck. Tomorrow I will squirt some motor oil on top of the pistons to see if the rings are the source of the low cylinders and just see how high the cylinder pressures will go with a solid ring seal.

During the dismantling of the original 2" exhaust system and standard manifolds on my truck, I was able to salvage the Flowmaster mufflers which I believe to be the standard 40 series. These sounded nice enough on it, however, having the tail pipes rotted away horribly made for some interesting noises. It will be interesting to hear the truck with a complete exhaust system under it again.

I had been told that I could use headers from a 70 Chevelle (hey, I have a set of those) on my K5. Well, they probably would work perfectly fine with a 2wd or a 4wd with a suspension lift, but not on my stock suspension truck. The passenger side header was way too close to the front drive shaft for comfort. I jacked up the front passenger corner until I just started to lift the passenger rear and it still did not hit, but I was still at least a 1/2" from the bump stops on the front suspension. So that was a no go. The driver side header was quite close to the oil filter which was likely from that header hitting the road when on my Chevelle.

So after striking out with the headers and already having the Hooker 2.25" mandrel bent dual exhaust system (16528HKR) on the way here, I opted for the Hooker Competition Headers (2453HKR black high temp paint) which I was able to order next day air from Amazon for $146 total to my door! I could not mess with my old headers for that kind of money!

Tomorrow I will have some pictures up of the header clearance with the old 70 Chevelle headers as well as some pictures of the dry fit exhaust system that will be installed. I still have to determine how best to route the passenger side as it looks like the kit is made up to route it under the transfer case cross member which I am not liking too much, but hopefully it will work equally as well routed over the transfer case, keeping everything tucked nicely in between the frame.

Again, pics to follow!

 

Glad to hear you are keeping busy, Kyle. You know what they say about idle hands.

 

Sounds pretty sweet! Why not just go with a minor suspension lift though?

 

Its not in the cards right now. A new set of springs is more than I would care to spend on the suspension right now. I would be going for a set of 4" springs so I could ditch the body lift. That would be around $500 for the lift springs, not including the additional items necessary (drop steering linkage - but I would like to go to cross over steering). Cheaper to go with the proper headers at this point. Plus the headers will be new and not the beat up old ones off my Chevelle.

 

That is a few extra dollars for some old headers. Probably a good decision

 

Yeah, not to mention that the driver side headers from the Chevelle had some road rash which had bent them in towards the oil filter more than I would like. It would have made changing the filter difficult... I could use a shorter filter to alleviate some of the heat concern, but it just was not worth it given the other issues with the headers.

Anyway, I decided to grab the pictures of the Chevelle headers (well, only the passenger side fitment issues) off of my camera so here they are:

These pictures are at static articulation max (which would end up with the front wheel only about 24" off the ground), note there is still over an inch until the springs hit the bump stops:


Next is of the suspension at normal ride height:


A few from the top:


And then there are the pictures of the plugs I took for comparison down the road. They will be cleaned up, gapped, and reinstalled once the headers and exhaust are all in place:





Do not mind the rust valve covers. When I get a chance, they are getting swapped out.

Later today, I will be pulling the old points style distributor and installing an HEI unit.