exhaust system and heater

I am in the process of puttig a high performance motor into a Vintage Speedster. I want to keep the heater boxes and also increase the exhaust pipes to 1 3/4" diameter. Berg said thier boxes won't fit. Any options? Also does anyone have a good source for an electric heater that works and is reliable?

I would recommend a search on "heat". You'd be surprised how many times this has been discussed.

You must have one heck of a motor to need 1 3/4" headers. I've never seen/heard of 1 3/4" heater boxes. A custom pair could be made. I had my 1 5/8" heater boxes custom made. Not an easy task and expensive. Basically, I found an old pair of heater boxes and used the skins around new 1 5/8" tubing. You could do the same with 1 3/4" tubing. The trick is to find someone who is able to do it. Note that the 1 3/4" merged header would also have to be modified. Lots of work and very expensive. How about a gas heater?
Ron

Dennis,

I have an electric heater, that a nimber of huys use, including myself. It's brand new, in the box....
E-mail me at clarkeg@crcindustries.com, and if you e-mail me your phone number, I'll use my dime to give you a call


Gclarke "The vacaville Guy"

More to the point, if you have 1 3/4" headers and they are any where near efficient, you'll need some ENORMOUS exhaust valves on a type 4 (and head porting and induction system to match ) to get the system to flow with the proper back pressure to make everything work right.

You sure you want to go that big? 1 5/8" would be big for that engine.

As you can tell, I'm still gathering info on a suitable system, 1 5\8" may be perfect. I've never heard of gas heaters, are they safe, I'm concerned that I'm building a bomb already. Gary, thanks for the offer, I may call you after I get a little more info.

Come on guys, I'm using a 1 3/4" header on my car and it works great.

Dennis, Henry has installed a gas heater in George Brown's car with excellent results. Also, I am in the process of retrofitting a gas heater into my car. I have attached some pictures of the kit below.

Heater boxes will never give heat as fast or as hot as the kind of heat you can get from a gas heater, except in summer, then the heater boxes work great....
Ron

Ron,
Where did you purchace your gas heater kit. It looks like the perfect answer to tbe Heating delimas of Speedsters.
Greg B

Ron, what did you end up running for a muffler?
Are you fairy sure that you're going to the drags on the Friday before the VW show? If you go I may bring the Miata and do a few runs.
Ron

Ron, what is the name of the kit?

Gordon, my 2,387 has 44mm in/37.5mm ex valves and a 1 3/4" exhaust...

I got the heater kit from the Espar dist. here in Canada. Made a deal with them through my company to buy them wholesale. If anyone is interested and would like me to get them a price let me know.

Ron, not sure if you are asking about the muffler for the heater or for the car - The heater kit comes with a muffler. I went with a 1 3/4" header and 2 1/2" exhaust with Dynomax muffler. I made the tailpipe a little too short to fully utilize the muffler, but it sounds great.

Yes I am going to the drags. We can talk closer to the date and arange to meet out there. It's open to the public, not just VWs, so you need to start lining up at about 4:30 or so.

Ron

Ron, sounds good and I'll probably go. I want to see how fast this V8 Miata really is, and it's a safe (legal) place to test its limits. Now, if I can just figure out how to launch this thing properly. Is Bruce going too?
Ron

Yes.