Does anyone make a set of headers for the Vin C 3800?

Not for the "C", at least not that I am aware of and the port spacing on the "L" is supposed to be different.

T'were me, the first thing I would do is to open up that horrible restriction where the oulet pipe is attached to the manifold.

Top picture - as from the factory
Bottom - about 30% more flow area


If that were not enough, the front manifold is not that bad but for the rear I'd look into separating the crossover and the rear manifold and bringing a new pipe down to a collector about a foot or two below the current location. Of course this would also require a new head pipe.

I dunno if it'* the same with the "C" cars... but with the '"3" cars.. the buicks (from what I've seen/been told so far) have the unrestricted pipe

personally for my Vin 3 car I am getting the buick rear manifold... cutting off and capping the manifold to manifold cross over pipe and doing a Y pipe off both (2inch and 2inch Y pipe into 2.5 inch pipe into 2.5 inch glasspack[resonator], no cat... into 2.5 in dual 2.25 out magnaflow Fbody muff.)

other then getting stuff fully custom built... that seems to be your best option... get the unrestricted rear mani or unrestrict it yourself.. get the flange on the rear mani cut off and patched.. and give them seperate pipes into a Y

I suspect the reason for the collector just "stick on" and so short is so the engine can be installed/removed without removing the rear manifold first.

padgett, are those pictures of a C or an L?

Those are from a "C" - 1990 Bonneville.

Thanks for the info, guys! I think I'm just going to stick with the stock manifold, and do a catback.

How hard is it to pull the cat and manifold apart to get to where you can grind away that ring? I'm thinking from the pictures you can just take off the bolts between the two, and drop the first exhaust hanger to pull the exhaust down and out of the way of the manifold outlet. Then you can stick a grinder in there and go at it

grinder = too big
rotory tool with "grinding bit" = perfect

make sure you have one that has a high rpm speed [perhaps 15k +, otherwise you'll be there forever. If you go to lowes or wherever and look at dremel, craftsman, or rotozip'* line of attatchments, once you spot the large rack full of them, you will easily find the perfect one.. because there is that perfect one for the job, buy two, because you'll be mad if you wear away at the bit and then drive there w/o an exhaust


-justin

Haha, good advice . I have a pneumatic dremel type tool at work that should work great. I jusr need to buy the attachment, like you said.

Is there any kind of gasket I will need to replace?

If you have access to an air compressor, a Die Grinder is excellent for this sort of thing.