Put Hooker super comp headers on my 347 stroker in my 63 sports coupe. No exhaust on the car just the headers. I put copper header gaskets on with the aluminum Dart Pro 1 heads. Drove the car this evening for 45 mins. give or take a few. About 10 minutes after turning the car off, I could wrap my hand around almost all of my header pipes and feel virtually no heat. Motor Temp never got over 160 and the oil presure was constant around 65-70. Is that normal with the copper gaskets? The valve covers were hot like normal but almost no heat from the headers. What's up?

Those conditions all sound fairly normal and reasonable to me....I use copper gaskets myself and I'm a huge fan of them, more so for thier long life and leak free sealing ability.
In your case, I think the copper gaskets may have played at least some role in your headers being so cool in such a short period of time, they will allow heat transfer to your heads a little faster than a fiber gasket...which act somewhat as a heat insulator.
I think the more major factors are that you have Alum heads and you ran the car without an exaust system. Of coarse, heat rises...and the Alum heads (the highest point of the engine) will absorb that heat and dissapate the heat faster than an iron head. Also, the cooler air that enters the headers (from the bottom) that replaces the warm air as heat dissapates, doesn't have any restrictions. There is no exaust system, or mufflers in the way...the larger opening at the collectors allows the cooler air to enter directly into the headers....therefore they can cool quickly.
So, under those operating conditions, I'd say all is very normal and to be expected.
Riff.
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66 GTA HARDTOP
66 GT CONV.
67 500 CONV Z CODE 4sp
67 RANCHERO XL 289 C4
68 TORINO GT CONV (INDY PACE CAR) 390 C6
69 COBRA FASTBACK "R" CODE C6
AND OTHERS...

Simple physics.

As Riff Raff said, open headers are a much more efficient exhaust. Less restriction.

A common misconception is that the exhaust is pumped out by the piston, which is not entirely true.

Hot gasses in the exhaust move to or are drawn out to the cooler air outside of the port. The piston starts the process, but the gas is drawn out by the cooler air outside of the header.

There are also scavanging pulses at play here and this is why the collector design is so important.

The hot air is moving faster, thus there is less time for thermal transfer of heat.

The copper gaskets most likely had little to do with this.

If you don't believe me,

Drive this again in the same manner. Shoot the header with an infrared heat gun. Note the temperatures of each tube. (this will also tell you alot about your carb tuning from cylinder to cylinder)

Install a 2" full exhaust with glass packs and repeat the process again.
Oh and grab the header then and let us know how that went!

Install a 2.5" with generic turbo mufflers and repeat the process exactly again.

Try it with 3" exhaust and a good muffler such as a Flow Master 40 series.

Try it with 3.5".

You will se the temperatures drop as the exhaust system gets larger and less restricted.

Oh and before anyone gets their panties all in a wad, you won't loose any torque down low with a larger exhaust. If you do there are larger problems at play.

An engine is an air pump, nothing more really. What goes in, must come out. The more efficient the intake, the better the exhaust must be.
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Scott
1963 Fairlane Mini tub 10pt cage New 408" C4 Canfield 195CC heads Comp solid roller Victor Jr. 9" w/4.11? gears Moser spool & 35 spline axles. www.marksullense85carburetors.com