I have an '05 F150 Lariat 5.4 V8, and I've installed a K&N cold air intake system. I'm trying to decide if I want to spend the money on a full dual exhaust system (piping and all); from either magnaflow or flowmaster. Or if I want to spend half the money and just buy the muffler and tips, and just have a muffler shop do the piping and bending. I understand the benifits of the pre-bent pipes, and the potential differences in performance. But is it really worth the extra $200 or $300?

 

Buy the muffler and tips online and have a shop fab everything up. Magnaflow>Flowmaster (If your stuck on those 2)

 

X2

Flowmaster is a beginners muffler.

 

x3 You will grow out of that Flowmaster stage in your life. ha ha

 

well i have mine true dualed, no mufflers and no cats...i got it all done for about 250

 

^^^ probably no crossover too

 

I guess my question is about the piping for the exhaust. When a muffler shop custom bends the piping, it decreases the diameter at every bend, but when you buy the full kit from the manufacturer, the pipes have smooth turns and no 'kinks'. Does this make any major difference in horsepower, performance, sound, etc? It's like twice the cost to buy the full kit from the manufacturer with the mandrel bends, so I just wanted to see if it's worth it or not...

 

You wont notice any difference in horsepower, performance, sound, etc. by having a shop bend the pipes vs buying mandrel bent pipes through a kit. Unless the pipes are bent by a noob and have major kinks and you can easily tell it is restricting flow, buying a kit vs having a shop weld and bend is not worth it.

 

The other major difference and a large part of the price difference at least around here is when you buy a Magnaflow kit not only is it prebent and mandrel it is also stainless steel. Before you go just have a muffler shop bend the pipe ask if it is stainless or aluminized. My guess is the ones that are $200-$300 cheaper are using aluminized pipe which is way cheaper and tends not to last depending on where in the country you are.

Around here you can find some muffler shops that will use stainless but it cost more. Just want you to have the whole story and understand why kits cost more.