Glowing Headers

[dmeis]

I rebuilt my 401 and added the Edelbrock cermaic coated headers. I've noticed that they tend to glow while just driving around town normally. It's most notable at night. When snow-bashing they really glow during the day.

It is .040 over with stock 1970 dish pistons, Holley Projection, Bulltear timing cover, oil cooler, and MSD ignition. It has ran for over 4 years with no issues.

For the recent rebuild I added: Comp Cams Extreme 274 cam, Indy roller rockers, 291C heads with 2.08 and 1.68 SS valves, Edelbrock ceramic coated headers, MSD Pro-billet disti, Airgap intake, Miloden 8qt pan. Consequently, I had to retune the fuel injection.

My base timing is set to 15 degrees. When I first fired the motor I checked the overall timing around 3K and is was less than 40 degrees. I will recheck when I get a second set of hands. I am at 5,000+ elevation.

I am concerned with the glowing headers with normal street driving. The A/F gauge reads normal and like it did before the rebuild. I used an infrared thermometer on the headers and it went off the scale above 880 degrees. This was after normal driving.

Am I just paranoid or is this abnormal?

Another thing is while snow-bashing with RPMs over 5,000 it will blow the oil cap right off the fill tube. I did reverse the PCV valve to reduce the excessive oil consumption. Oil consumtion is a lot less but not normal. There are no oil leaks or smelly exhaust. There is also no noticble fumes from the crankcase during idle.

I only have about 100 miles on the street and possibly 20 hours off road. I also broke the engine in for 30 minutes at 2,500 RPM.

[Rogue Racer]

Most common cause for headers to glow bright in normal operating use is due to mixture-timing being out of scale. A too rich OR too lean mixture will cause glowing headers, though too rich is more likely. Sometimes not enough timing will cause glowing headers, but that will be because it makes the engine think its rich at running RPMs. Check both jetting/fuel map and timing in the RPM range the engine wants to turn the headers red.

[Goose]

Under normal circumsatances.. glowing headers would be bad..have you pulled aplug or two to make sure your not burning them up? if the air fuel mixture gauge says you are about right.. I would have to wonder if there is some point in the rpm band that the carb is calibrated lean.. My brother had a stock 350 chev that did this we fiddled with it forever different carbs etc, never did solve it.. but the engine has 130,000 and is still going.. beats me!