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Shops We Love: Imperfect Pipes
Jack Burns studies a blackened, three-into-one exhaust header from a Porsche 911 RSR with professional admiration. Re-creating that head- er in stainless steel for a car scheduled to race in the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion is the next project on his job list. The work is definitely a challenge, but from an aesthetic perspective, it’s like asking Raphael to paint a copy of the Mona Lisa.
Burns is a fine artist whose medium is exhaust headers. At the moment, he’s fabricating a set for a big-block V-8 that’s destined for Bonneville and more than 300 mph. The unfinished masterpiece is temporarily attached to a raw casting of a Pro Stock head—four gleaming tubes snaking away from the exhaust ports before merging into a single pipe. It looks less like a car part than a sinuous sculpture.
“All of the projects are fun, but this was pain-in-the-butt fun,” Burns says, laughing. “It was very, very complicated. But that’s what I like.”
At 66, with a white goatee and a twinkle in his eye, Burns works with technical director Vince Roman and five fabricators out of a homely shop in a nondescript industrial stretch of Costa Mesa, California. For nearly three decades, Burns Stainless has been a go-to destination for teams in NASCAR, NHRA, IMSA, and V8 Supercars in Australia. The DeltaWing race car carried Burns exhaust components. So does each Porsche 911 reimagined by Singer.
Nowadays, every gearhead knows there’s magic in exhaust systems. YouTube is awash with how-to videos for do-it-your-selfers. But during the first half century of the automobile’s development, the benefits of “tuned” headers weren’t understood. Exhaust gases were usually routed out of an engine as simply as possible, through a log-shaped manifold and a long tailpipe.
Exhaust gases generate strong pressure and vacuum waves as they ow through a header pipe. Depending on the width and length of the header’s tubes and the collector that they merge into, the vacuum wave can be timed to scavenge gas from the cylinder and increase air ow during the engine’s intake stroke. The catch is that the so- called primaries—the initial section of header tube, from exhaust port to the first collector or merge point—should be the same tuned length. That’s why headers follow such serpentine paths, and it helps explain the magnificent complexity of, for example, the “bundle of snakes” exhaust seen in the original Ford GT40.
By the early 1960s, companies such as Hooker, Jardine, S&S, Stahl, and Hedman were selling equal-length headers made of mild (a.k.a. carbon) steel to hot-rodders. In 1968, Burns went to S&S to buy a set for his street racer—a Ford Anglia packing a small-block Chevy—and ended up getting a job there. After a 10-year apprenticeship, he opened his own shop and decided to specialize in stainless steel.
“It’s tougher to work with than carbon steel,” Burns says. “It’s harder to cut, and it’s harder to grind. You’ve also got to be more careful with the fitment. But it welds so beautifully, and it creates such a clean and pure part.”
Although stainless is stronger and more durable than mild steel, it’s a lot more expensive. Burns’s early customers came from the local boat industry. His first car project was a set of stainless-steel headers for a twin-turbo, big-block Camaro. “Fortunately, the owner had a pretty deep wallet,” Burns says, and laughs again.
His work with stainless eventually got him noticed by Circle Track magazine. The editor showed him a prepublication ver- sion of a story about his shop. “In the intro, it said that we were a major supplier to NASCAR,” Burns recalls. “I said, ‘You can’t put that in there! We don’t have any NASCAR business!’ And they said, ‘No, we’re going to leave that in there, and it’s going to go into print, and they’re going to come.’ Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened.”
These days, Burns Stainless focuses more on drag racing than NASCAR, and most of its business consists of selling exhaust- system components through a mail-order catalog. Roman, a mechanical engineer, came on board in 1999 and was instrumental in writing software that designs exhaust systems. Customers provide engine data—from bore and stroke to lifter type and intake-lobe centerline—and the program spits out the specifications for customized kits that can be assembled by professional engine builders or skilled DIYers.
But the company also takes on a few custom projects, which Burns still handles himself. He begins, somewhat grudgingly, with the exhaust-design program. “We used to do it by feel,” he says. “We’d go to the dyno with different-cut tube lengths and collectors and test it. Vince and I still have our spats from time to time. I’ll say, ‘I want to do it this way.’ And he says, ‘No, no, no, we’ve got to do it this way, because this is what the engineering data says.’ ”
Although the company’s software specifies the dimensions of the system, Burns still has to draw it on paper to see how it will t inside the chassis. “I’m old-school,” he says. “I have to get in my mind what the 3-D image should look like, and it’s incredible how close I come.” Next, he mocks it up with plastic sections that snap together like Legos. “That’s new-school, actually,” he admits. Old-timers used welding rod or vacuum hose for modeling.
Burns marks a mandrel-bent tube with a Sharpie and cuts it with a band saw. He then follows standard metalworking practices—grinding the cut at, hand deburring inside and out, belt-sanding the edges smooth. It’s sometimes hard to carry on a conversation in the cramped shop, be- cause so many machines—some of them older than Burns—are constantly whirring, buzzing, and whining.
Typically, the tube gets “ovalized” when it’s bent, so Burns works it back into round with a metal-forming hammer and a T dolly. He then performs a “rock test”—placing it on a table to see if it rocks—to make sure it’s perfectly at, so it will mate properly with the flange that snugs up against the exhaust port. Next, he tack-welds it in place and goes on to the next piece. When he’s positive the entire unit ts together, Burns back-purges the in- side of the tube with argon and res up the TIG welder with an argon gas shield to protect the weld from oxidizing. Unlike in the aerospace industry, which demands symmetrical beads inside and out, Burns prefers less penetration on the inside to prevent anything from impeding the gas ow within the tube.
Now that custom exhausts can be designed entirely by computer, the day is coming when every piece could be knocked out by a 3-D metal printer. But will it be better than one hand-built by Burns? No more than a body panel stamped out by an industrial press is better than one beaten out of aluminum by metalwork- ing artisans. Perfection is always the goal, but it’s the inevitable blemishes that remind us that something was made by a human craftsman rather than a faceless machine.
“When I create a header, I want it to be aesthetically pleasing,” Burns says. “Form has to follow function, and it has to make horsepower. But I also want a design that satisfis my soul.”
Burns Stainless | Costa Mesa, California
Specialty: Fabricate exhaust components for professional motorsports