I have a '98 Super cab with the 4.6 and 285K miles on it. Stock everything. I'm looking at replacing the exhaust from the manifolds back. I've searched here and there is SO much information it's overwhelming, and most of it seems to be performance or sound related. Not looking for any crazy setup, just a solid replacement for the OEM cats and muffler. Any sugestions?

 

I was just over at rockauto.com checking prices on misc. stuff.... they have all the exhaust parts you'll need and cheap too!

 

Magnaflow hi flow cats and magnaflow muffler. Not to loud and nice simple setup.

 

I found a guy that was selling a pair of used but practically new Magnaflow 4"x9"x18" mufflers with 2.5" I/O (Part number 11246) for $85.00. He didn't like them because they were not loud enough. I wanted something with good performance and sound but not obnoxious, and I wanted to avoid the dreaded "Drone".

I had a local Muffler shop custom fab a Cat back DIDO exhaust system for $300. I had a pair of HiFlow MagnaFlow cats but both the shop owner and the installer recommended against them because out of all of them they has installed or have seen installed, better than 50% have caused the check engine light (MIL) to light up, and most have had to revert back to the stock cats, I decided to take their advice and I have never looked back.

Another advantage was the significant difference in weight, installing the new system probably dropped ~80 lbs from the truck. That single "Log" muffler weighed about three times what both of the Maggies weighed together!

My truck has a subtle rumble at idle and cruise and is plenty loud enough when I romp it! And the truck definitely picked up some horses!

Check out the installation in my album:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/me...o+exhaust.html

 

Well, yea, you can't go back, so why look right? The Magnaflow converters are designed/engineered to keep within efficiency margins and they do when installed correctly. Although the muffler shop may be speaking the truth, - its only because they absolutely DO NOT know what they're doing.. Seriously! With your post, this is obvious. I've done and helped with many F150 exhaust systems and the ONLY time you get a CEL from a Hi Flow converter install that's O2 compliant is when you have a leak within the system Y, manifolds or EGR connects. With a tight system, you won't have a problem with Hi-Flows. You'll have a MUCH better exhaust note, deeper rumble, - just an over all better sound. Performance may even be a little better.

I've posted exactly how it is with the F150 exhaust. Now you know.

 

Whatever you do, avoid Flowmaster unless you love drone. Magnaflow cats and muffler would do well.

 

I like my SISO Gibson catback.

 

That's to bad. Your factory exhaust will out flow yours , probably x4 since you have two big Gibs plugging things up. But hey, it sounds good right! And that's how they do it. Anytime you chamber air/flow, you have the ability to manipulate sound. Lets face it, -there' a lot of suckers that actually hunt these products down.

Now if you want a GOOD Gibson, they have them. These are HiFlow Mufflers for the performance minded individuals. These, -you have to hunt down as well, since there's such a high volume of , good for nothing noisemakers out there today. Gibson/Flowmaster, = Same.

 

I didn't do it for sound. I had to replacd my exhaust and my cats are fine. I went with the single Gibson as it was easy to install, inexpensive and felt it would flow a little better due to size of the pipe and the mandrel bends

 

I must have clicked the wrong user profile. The other user in this thread, sig pic is similar to yours, but runs a dual set up.

Unless you have a Gibson race series muffler (straight thru design), the OEM muffler flows much better then that Gibson, hands down.