Does the length of the muffler affect flow or sound? What I want to do is get a shorter muffler so that i can place the pipe before rear wheel. Also, is there an advantage to having a round or oval muffler?

 

im pretty sure it is the shorter the louder, it might not be true with some brands tho
and round mufflers take up less room

 

The longer the muffler the quieter it is. There are basically 2 muffler designs, baffled and straight through. The baffled mufflers have chambers that are used to quiet down the exhaust sound. Therefore, the longer the muffler, the more chambers there are in it, and the quieter it is. The best example of this type of muffler is the Flowmaster, although IMCO and Gibson also use baffles. The other kind is a straight through design, which has a straight pipe through the center of the muffler that is perforated. Surrounding this tube in the muffler casing is insulating material that quiets the sound down as it passes through. There are several different companies that use this design, Magnaflow and Banks being the first that come to mind.

 

so that is the major difference between flowmaster and magnaflow? (not trying to start a war here) I'm going back and forth between these companies. My major concern is loudness... i'm trying to stay under 97-100 dBs but no one will give a straight answear to how loud these mufflers are.

I also got one more dumb question, does the length of the tail pipe affect sound?

 

The longer the pipe after the muffler, the quieter it will be. As for staying under 100dB, I would reccomend a 24" Magnaflow muffler. It will be very mild driving but will wake up when you go WOT.

 

keep muffler as close to axle to keep in cab sound to a minimum

 

what does WOT mean? wild on throttle?

 

Pony... you might want to reconsider exhausting in front of the rear wheels. I have a '97 F150 Flareside, 4.2L, with exhaust in front of the passenger side wheel. The exhaust blackens the wheel and if not cleaned often causes severe corrosion of the chrome. (Wheels are chrome-plated aluminum, or some alloy). I have had to replace wheels because of this. Some have said Ford acknowledged the problem and replaced wheels for those who were lucky enough to know about it (I wasn't). And in mid-model year, '97, changed production to exhaust behind the wheel. Just my 2-cents worth...

Paul

 

interesting, so do lightnings have the same problem? Clocker, I'm glad you pointed that out to me, thanks.

 

I have had several trucks with lightning-style exhaust and have never had a problem with the right rear wheel getting dirty, sooted, corroded, or harmed in any way.