ARH Headers question???

[NEhemi_man]

Has anyone put on the ARH headers with no cats on the 2020 ram 2500 6.4L and left the rest of the exhaust stock? Just wondering how this option would work/sound.

 

[CG2742]

It would work. You’d probably have to get a tune if you didn’t have cats. Depending on your state as well if they will pass emission on it

 

[NEhemi_man]

Just curious but why would it need a tune if it didn't have the cats?

 

[Daw14]

It changes operating parameters of the engine , it can breathe easier . If your putting them on you should get all of their benefits.

 

[NEhemi_man]

Agreed, but I'd like to add as much hp without screwing up the warranty. I know it's a trade-off, but I was hoping I could get 30hp by just adding headers and removing the cats

 

[CG2742]

You’d need a tune to tune out the rear o2 sensors. Without cats it would read wrong

 

[HEMIMANN]

Even with cats it might need custom tune. I plan to find out.

ARH cats are 200 cell, stock are 400 cell. ARH says theirs are "less restrictive". How efficient are they? I'll bet they won't say, to avoid any emissions compliance liability. They explicitly advertise these for OFF ROAD USE ONLY to ensure no responsibility for "misapplication" in street use.

 

[Firebird]

I too would love to run long tubes, but with the high flow cats and the stock exhaust. The gear head in me just loves headers.

 

[NDanecker]

NN (neural network) is OK with sensing small changes but my guess you won't see any meaningful gain with just headers. If anything you may even lose power down low and not gain anything on top especially with the poor stock cam profile.

Without cats you will def get 02 sensor not ready DLC codes, etc. May put motor into limp mode depending on code.

You will need a tune which requires unlocking the PCM.

My advice is to just unlock the PCM and have a local tune shop tune it. You'll gain more HP/TQ just by the tune (without changing parts) then by just doing the headers (long or short) alone with no tune which may run into issues. Once you change one variable (part) the stock tune is no longer valid and NN can only do so much.

Tune with headers and better intake will be noticeable by the butt dyno.

Next largest gain would be a cam. The stock cam in these trucks are extremely conservative.

 

[theviking]

Even with cats it might need custom tune. I plan to find out.

ARH cats are 200 cell, stock are 400 cell. ARH says theirs are "less restrictive". How efficient are they? I'll bet they won't say, to avoid any emissions compliance liability. They explicitly advertise these for OFF ROAD USE ONLY to ensure no responsibility for "misapplication" in street use.

You can tell by the smell of the exhaust that they are certainly less efficient then the stock converters. Still, it managed to pass the sniffer test.

 

[theviking]

Has anyone put on the ARH headers with no cats on the 2020 ram 2500 6.4L and left the rest of the exhaust stock? Just wondering how this option would work/sound.

I ran catted ARH headers on my 2015 with the stock exhaust for a while, and without a tune (since it wasn't available yet). I had absolutely no issues with drivability and it certainly did still help with performance. But with the stock muffler you could hardly hear any difference in sound. Just a bit more mechanical noise and that was about it, no exaggeration. Even with the cats I'd occasionally throw an O2 CEL so you will certainly have an issue without the converters. How much the factory muffler is a bottleneck is a matter of opinion but they certainly use big enough piping. FYI, most aftermarket cat-back options are going to have a very aggressive sound with those headers.

 

[RAM-pagingMN]

i just bought an MBRP catback, these ARH will be next mod!

 

[Nick@GotExhaust]

Personally if it is a daily I would run cats just to cut down on the smell. With cats you wont hear much of a difference except at higher RPMs you can hear it is a little louder. Without cats you will hear more of a difference at basically all levels. Either way I recommend getting rid of the restrictive stock exhaust when doing long tubes. Even if you just do a muffler kit.

Let us know if we can help. We offer many brands including ARH

 

[HEMIMANN]

Personally if it is a daily I would run cats just to cut down on the smell. With cats you wont hear much of a difference except at higher RPMs you can hear it is a little louder. Without cats you will hear more of a difference at basically all levels. Either way I recommend getting rid of the restrictive stock exhaust when doing long tubes. Even if you just do a muffler kit.

Let us know if we can help. We offer many brands including ARH

Nick,

I'm in the exhaust mod market too, having finished my front end mods. I plan to go with headers, I think the only options for 2500 Ram 6.4 are ARH & AFE. I'm doing this to prevent the poor design stock exhaust manifold warping and breaking attaching bolt heads. At 36k miles, I know I'm in the danger range.

Stock manifolds are extremely restrictive, one of the poorest & restrictive designs I've seen - a horizontal tube with ports and thin flange = high backpressure, warpage, broken bolts, exhaust leaks (EPA should be all over this, but isn't). FCA refuses to address the bad design except for fix-as-fail, repeatedly.

I plan to put on ARH & cats, but need to save for it and do in spring. My question is, when I do this, will a lower restriction muffler make the exhaust too loud? I was going to use Solo Performance MR400 drop in muffler assembly, as the least loud performance retrofit.

Please respond, I think OP would appreciate response here instead of a PM. Once I decide we can PM pricing. Thanks!

 

[Nick@GotExhaust]

Nick,

I'm in the exhaust mod market too, having finished my front end mods. I plan to go with headers, I think the only options for 2500 Ram 6.4 are ARH & AFE. I'm doing this to prevent the poor design stock exhaust manifold warping and breaking attaching bolt heads. At 36k miles, I know I'm in the danger range.

Stock manifolds are extremely restrictive, one of the poorest & restrictive designs I've seen - a horizontal tube with ports and thin flange = high backpressure, warpage, broken bolts, exhaust leaks (EPA should be all over this, but isn't). FCA refuses to address the bad design except for fix-as-fail, repeatedly.

I plan to put on ARH & cats, but need to save for it and do in spring. My question is, when I do this, will a lower restriction muffler make the exhaust too loud? I was going to use Solo Performance MR400 drop in muffler assembly, as the least loud performance retrofit.

Please respond, I think OP would appreciate response here instead of a PM. Once I decide we can PM pricing. Thanks!

You are right about the poorly design that is so restrictive on these trucks. On top of the poorly designed manifolds they mated them to a horrible crushed y pipe for even worse flow.

Yes a better flowing muffler will be louder but that is part of the reason I recommend to go with cats. That will help quiet it down. The high flow cats wont make it too much louder than the stock cats. I actually feel that if you want a quieter setup I would go with the Magnaflow direct fit muffler kit. It is a little quieter than the MR400. Ultimately I like the Maganflow 19200 catback but if you want to save a few bucks and just do a muffler kit there are some very good options like the Magnaflow muffler kit out there too.

let me know if that answers your question or if you have any other questions. I would be happy to answer them the best I can!

 

[theviking]

Trust me, ARH headers are noticeably louder then the stock manifolds/y-pipe even with cats. I recently took the headers off to have them coated and the difference vs stock was pronounced. Initially matched with the 19200 kit the noise level was manageable with little drone. But over time the noise level has increased dramatically. I assume the packing in the MF muffler has deteriorated.

 

[BEAST19]

i just bought an MBRP catback, these ARH will be next mod!

That’s what I have.
Love em!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Pull Ya]

Long tube headers will always increase the sound level no matter what muffler you have.
Jay

 

[HEMIMANN]

Trust me, ARH headers are noticeably louder then the stock manifolds/y-pipe even with cats. I recently took the headers off to have them coated and the difference vs stock was pronounced. Initially matched with the 19200 kit the noise level was manageable with little drone. But over time the noise level has increased dramatically. I assume the packing in the MF muffler has deteriorated.

Thanks again for sharing.

Yes, if Magnaflow has microfiberglass packing (I believe reading it does), it will mat with engine runtime due to water / vapor in the exhaust, negating a lot of the noise absorption. My son noticed this as well on his truck with a Magnaflow muffler he installed.

Solo advertises ceramic and stainless steel wool for acoustic baffling inside their MR400 muffler kit. Wouldn't that be better?

Would you recommend forgoing any muffler replace with the ARH headers, being too loud from the combination of both?

 

[HEMIMANN]

Long tube headers will always increase the sound level no matter what muffler you have.
Jay

Of course - I'm trying to establish how much? Is it too much to ALSO add a performance muffler? Recall I started this post by stating I didn't want a very loud system? I'm gonna do the ARH headers regardless due to the crappy FCA exhaust manifold. Presuming it's gonna break bolts eventually, even under warranty, I don't want to put the same crappy new manifold back on, nor do I want to machine down the warped current one and reinstall. Both required truck out-of-service, a major hassle to replace. I want to do this once, and correctly, since FCA won't.