![]() ![]() Today Tri-Y design pipes are favored by road racers and NASCAR Winston Cup teams, in addition to many of the top NHTA and IHRA Pro Stock engine builders. This next statement will probably cause some controversy, but it is the truth - For just about every American V-8 on the street, the Tri-Y design is optimal for overall power production. When Doug got divorced his ex wife Betty started Doug Thorley Headers and used the idea for trucks and motor homes also. Doug Thorley, through his Doug's Headers brand really popularized this type of header and Doug's Headers still makes them today. Tri Y headers became popular with the original Mustangs and Shelby's and that was still probably the most famous use for them. I've collected these pictures because I plan to build a set for my FE in a 56 Ford. Like the big cam debate, technology has come a long way and passed them by but if looks and nostalgia mean anything to you they are cool and hard to beat. No I never reached the ultimate potential of the design but I'm sure that mine are better than a stock cast iron manifold and I'm not scrounging for tenths of a second at the race track either. I never bothered to learn the matematical theory behind it all. I love them and built them for some of my old hot rods just because they are different and have that old timey feel to them. Tri Ys don't sound any different than conventional headers. You could tell from the pits if he was on the track with the other competitors just by the sound. We called it the bumble bee due to the sound. I used to help a 1/2 mile circle tracker years ago and one of his competitors built a true 180 deg header system for his 1/2 mile asphalt car. My feeble memory bank wants to say that Ford had the first 180 deg headers (GT-40 maybe?) but they could have copied it from someone else. My recollection was that Tri Y came along first and then someone carried it a little further to the 180 deg headers that yoked cylinders from opposite sides of the engine together as pictured in an earlier post. Usually one side will yoke the side by side tubes together but the other side would yoke every other one together like the lower one above. All of the Tri Y headers that I've ever seen were different on each side because the firing order determined which tubes should be yoked together. This was done to try to space out the pulses in the system as they pass through the exhaust system. You can see on the bottom one that the second cylinder and the 4th cylinder are yoked together and the first and third are yoked together. Even though there are 3 Ys, these are not considered "Tri Y" headers. 2 adjacent cylinders are yoked together and then they are yoked together again farther down the line. There is a difference between "Tri Y" headers and 2-2-1 headers. ![]()
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