I've found one at an acceptible price and am ready to place an order, but thought this morning to phone the tech. depts. of both Flowmaster and Gibson (I have a 3" side swept catback). The Flowmaster tech. wanted go on about how my 3" catback was robbing lowend and really had no insight into this mod. Initially, I got the impression that he saw no need for the mod, but when it clicked that I would be buying FM product, he wished me good luck and that was the end of the call. The Gibson tech. had no clue what this mod would do, so he went to a superior who told him flat out that this would kill my low-end and to stay stock. Frankly, I don't think either of these guys had much of a clue and I will probably defer to the experts on this board who have had good results. Any comments?

 

I did the mod after doing my cat-back and I definitely did not lose any low end. I was concerned about that as well since I tow a lot and low end is everything in that scenario. I did gain about 1/2 mpg average during the past several months so the mod has more or less paid for itself. I don't remember anybody on this board saying anything bad about it, in fact it has been just the opposite. I think it's a good mod to do and one of the more cost-effective as well. Yeah, asking a Gibson rep about using a FM product would probably not result in anything in the way of useful information...


Oh, when you see the crappy factory 'Y', if you really want to call it that, you'll know what we're all talking about. I was very surprised at what I saw. Or maybe I wasn't surprised... Do a search and get some more info. There are pics out there of the factory 'Y' as well.

 

Ask these techs two questions. 1) have they ever seen the inside of the driver's side pipe to Y-intersection. 2) What good is their 3" cat-back gonna do being fed by a 2.5" factory pipe?

 

Yeah, that factory Y is a real piece of work. Like they say: If it looks like crap, smells like crap, feels like crap then it is crap.

Yeah, another good point about the 2.5 into a 3. What is the point of using their wonderful product(s) ? Gibson don't make a Y collector like that so I guess the FM Y's must be bad...

 

Yes, but look at the other mods you have too. For those that don't have a chip or FIPK, headers and on and on, it's possible that you "could" lose some low end with the Y pipe mod. This is just from info that "I" have gotten from this board and the outside. For now I'm satisfied with my trucks performance and figure if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Max: I understand completely what you are saying about it all going into a 2.5" pipe and that's all you are flowing anyway. Makes sense and I'm sure that's what's happening anyway.

All I'm gonna say is it's your decision what you do. I've decided to just leave it alone. For me that works just fine. I still have the FM "Y" pipe in my garage, so when the time comes to add it, I'll do it.

Happy Trucking!

 

Yep, you definitely make a good point...

I did do the FIPK, cat-back and Y right after each other though and I didn't lose any low end when towing with only those 3 mods. I didn't do the chip, fans and headers until long after the Y and cat-back, probably over a year or so. I did the Y a couple of months after the cat-back and over a period of time I did see the mpg improvement. Now, heck, you wouldn't be able to use my truck as a test bed since everything is changed out so specific results would be relatively worthless...

It would really be great to see the real deal on low end vs high end performance impact on each of the mods and be able to make some educated decision on what to do, in what order to do it and what to take a pass on. Who knows, maybe just the chip is a good thing to do and leave everything else alone. I don't know because the info's not out there in a form you can do any kind of comparison.

You ask companies like Gibson and FM like roden did and what do you get ? A bunch of BS, so we're on our own to figure it out.

Sorry to be long winded but I'm frustrated like roden is. Most of the info I got was from this board from some specific folks who are obviously objective. In addition, most of the info was more or less right on from my experiences.

Your comment is right though. If I could go back and do it again I would definitely have done the chip first and taken it from there. It's just really expensive compared to the Y.

Does make me think about all of it again though... What if ????