Exhaust advice & help, personal experiences

[CanadianHemi]

I have a 2005, 5.7L Ram ,75,000Kms on it and 3.92 final drive gearing.
Needing as much personal experience from other users exhaust systems to help me design my system for maximum performance and sound. If anyone has worked in an exhaust shop, designed an exhaust around the modern Hemi or just has one that works/flows/sounds good please feel free to share with me!

Let me begin by saying I have the stock exhaust on my truck right now despite the 2' hole in the muffler, and I am VERY pleased with how much bottom end grunt my truck has and I don't really want to loose it. This truck is not my daily driver, I am building it for the sake of hot rodding it and I want that " what the hell is under the hood?" and the "throw you back in the seat power" which it does now down low and in its mid range power, So naturally I want more! I should mention I have a planned comp 268 Cam, tuner, intake in the future for this truck.

So I have been doing a lot of research for the last two months about exhaust systems and how they affect power. I have a design, I am wondering what you guys think, if you have recommendations or a different design please explain!

- long tube headers (best power gains)
- regular Catalytic converters (don't want to throw any codes, High-flow cats are just a scam, "apparently")
- Dual 2.5' piping ( for exhaust velocity and maintain some back pressure for bottom end/mid)
- X pipe * this isn't for certain because the drivers side of the exhaust will be longer and I think this will not equalize the scavenging of the drivers side cylinders?
- 2.5' Borla DI/DO 18' muffler straight through.
- 2.5' out of muffler and straight back with 4' tips

note;I have thought about doing single tube as well but from most research I have done, dual is usually best when designed proper.

This is my design from what I have researched, let me know what you guys think and maybe help me improve on some things or have a totally different design, please help me out!

 

[CanadianHemi]

Anyone??

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

I have high flow cats into true dual 2.5" piping with a x pipe before the 2 cherry bomb extremes then 2.5" outta them to 4" tips that are 45 degree out the back corners.. Def the best power outta my three set ups I've had on this truck.. Nice rumble when just normal driving and cruising then sounds beastly when ya hammer down.

 

[CanadianHemi]

Thanks for the reply! Did you notice any loss in low end power or sluggishness on the take off after the true dual? Also where you have free flowing cats and X pipe with duals, do you ever find that your exhaust will "bark" or "pop" when you let off the throttle?

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

When I first did the true dual I didn't do the x pipe and it was crazy loud, made a weird "fluttering" sound that would shake the truck and go from side to side and yes I had significant power loss and mpg loss. So I added the x pipe since it balances out the exhaust flow and it made it quieter, still really mean sounding but it was ridiculous before the x pipe, eliminated the "fluttering", and gained my power back and then some compared to my single in/dual out setup I had before this. No it doesn't pop or bark when ya let off the gas driving. It cracks when ya rev it or hammer on it but has a nice rumble when ya drive/pull out normal. So you get best of both worlds. Normal rumble when ya drive normal and bad ass when ya feel frisky lol

 

[chefred112]

if your going to keep the stock cats..have your muffler guy cut the ends off a little bigger... my setup is almost like a hybrid true dual setup. I ran pacesetter lt's with 3" piping all the way back, cut off the ends of the cats to get 3" openings on either end...had an H part welded in where the piping came close together, then ran into dual 3" cutouts, then into a 3" dual in/3.5" single out dumped over axle. I did the single out because I was afraid of losing low end. This has seemed to work well with my truck over the years (5.7 and 6.4)





although I gutted my cats and ran 3" piping thru it..

 

[CanadianHemi]

Thanks for the replies guys. I was going to replace both my Cats with Magnaflow universal cats right into new piping.

Has anyone tried just a 3' Single tube into a SI/SO design, like a Magnaflow cat-back system? With or with out Headers? They say these preform better than a SI/DO system and even sometimes better than a True dual or DI/DO muffler on low end power.

What do you guys think of a SI/SO performance system? Looks bad? Sounds bad? This exhaust stuff is driving me crazy with what to do haha
But keep up the replies they all help!

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Yea I'd do the magnaflow cats over the little spun cats I have cause they kick on the check engine light pretty often. I know I can fix that with defoulers but just haven't done that yet. I haven't done a si/so but a buddy of mine has that on his 6.0 Chevy and says it performs good. He has headers into a y pipe to one of the round magnaflow mufflers. Sounds pretty good to me but the hemi still eats up that Chevy lol

 

[EWC88]

Blackbeauty are you able to get a sound clip of yours? I need to do a exhaust system for my truck and not sure which route I want to go. Although yours will probably be louder since it's a hemi and mine is a 4.7..

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Yea I'll try to get a clip in the next day or so for ya. It might be a lil louder but those 4.7's still sound good. There's a few around here that make ya say damn that sounds good.

 

[EWC88]

Yea I've had a lot of people like the sound of my truck and as soon as I respond back to there question hemi? And I say no 4.7 there like damn that's a nice rumble. Just time to replace what the old owner did, plus I'm getting rattles and its rusting out.

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Here I got some clips up.. Not the best but not too bad for recording it on a iPhone by myself lol
http://youtu.be/ZT4Uv8Jwfj4

http://youtu.be/HtTf-XgiRcA

 

[EWC88]

Absolutely mean right there

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

Thanks lol I love it.. It's not even that bad in the cab.. I should've made one of those videos to

 

[CanadianHemi]

blackbeautyhemi , where did you place your X pipe at?

What kind of catalytic converters do you guys recommend so I don't throw a code? I just got some prices from a local shop for Magnaflow universals, 248.89 each..

 

[blackbeautyhemi]

About 18" inches before the mufflers. The magnaflow cats would be good. I had that on my old truck and it never threw any codes.. These lil spun cats I have now throw a code about once a week. I'm thinking about trying those defoulers to get rid of that.