I have a 71 442 with a 1970 455 engine with E heads I'm looking to dump the stock exhaust and get a set of headers but watching people on YouTube it seems that a lot of company's that sell these for this year Cutlass end up not fitting?

 

I think it depends upon the definition of “fitting”. Many require some clearancing of a tube here and there, and some require more work than others. Some companies have been making headers for these cars/engines since the 1960s so most are at least a decent fit.

 

https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...eaders-181837/

 

I know in some of the videos I see builders having to hammer indentations into pipes to get them the clearance to fit trying to avoid any type of fabrication or altering of the headers if possible.

 

I’m not sure you will be able to find headers that won’t require some clearancing to fit. I had to do that on 2 sets of headers for my 350 - it was no big deal and hasn’t caused any issues in over 40 years of use.

 

American Racing Headers fit, no massaging in my application.