Hey guys I've been a lurker learned a lot from these forums but I need advice, so recently I decided I'm going to make my own exhaust buy the tubing and weld it together I work at a shop. But all that aside, I was curious to why m exhaust is so damn quiet. Being the 4.6 I really should have known but I have a buddy with one and his is loud as hell. So I may have gone over board, I cut my exhaust off right after my cats, like I can see the honey combs, and it's loud and beefy but I feel like my cats are messed up cause it sounds like dog poop. What could possibly have gone wrong?

 

Should we really know why you don't like your exhaust?
Look at you buddy's exhaust and duplicate it if you like the sound.
Has he gutted the cats?
It may still not sound the same.
Good luck.

 

Exhaust tone, volume and sound are affected by a lot of different variables. Size of pipe, length of pipe, cats, mufflers, back-pressure, engine size/mods, tips and even direction of tips, such as rear exit, side exit or turn-downs. When you chopped yours off right behind the cats, you lost all your back-pressure and tone from the pipes, just adding a simple bolt on turn-down right there would completely change the sound. For example, my 97 4.6 and my 2004 4.6 have the same basic configuration, and stock exhaust, but sound totally different. Bluegrass is right, if you want your truck to sound like your buddies, you will have to mimic his set-up exactly. This is one case where a good muffler shop is worth the money, they can advise you and work with you to get the sound you want. About a month ago I took my wifes RX-8 to a muffler shop to have straight pipes put on. I told the guy to cut out everything but the O2 bungs and run straight pipes all the way out the back. He said how bout we start with removing the muffler and leaving the resonator and the cats and see how it sounds. I said ok, but I know what I want and that ain't gonna get it. 10 minutes with a sawz-all and he fired it up..........it was perfect!! Nice loud growl that she had been wanting. He ran the pipes out the back and the whole thing cost me $120. Also, when you make a major change to any computer controlled vehicle, it has to run through a few drive cycles to accommodate your change. Her car was backfiring and making all kinds of weird noises for 3 or 4 days and it gradually cleared up. Sounds great now.