Well, after reading all the debates over the different types of mufflers I wanted something to beef up the sound on my truck.. I had taken the muffler off completely but ran into a spot of legal trouble. Not to mention a loss of MPG and it sounded real raspy..

Anyway, I can't afford a flowmaster so I decided to try the old Suit-case style cherry-bomb Turbo muffler. I popped the tail pipe out of all the hangers and took that out completely. Then I cut the pipe about a half a foot from the flange and put the muffler on. I used a universal hanger on the doughnut and a turndown right out of the suitcase.

When I turned the truck on I was like WTF?? It sounded as quiet as it did with the stock muffler. I let it sit for 10 - 15 min to warm up and expand the clamps and such.. Well, that made a big difference. I noticed as it warmed up it changed sound a lot!! Not so much loud but deep and throaty. I liked it at idle but when I took it out on the road I was really impressed. What a defiance it made at 3000 rpm..

I am sure the Flowmaster sounds good dumped, but if you got a tight budget get a flat blade screwdriver, some WD-40 and a few exhaust clamps and you can make a nice sounding budget friendly rumble..

If any one would like I can toss some photos up or even a sound clip...

 

yea i would like to see how this looks and sounds!

 

Alright, here they are.. The photos of my rain soaked muffler installation.. It was pouring when I did this last night at work so I had to take the pictures this morning, figures; today it's 65* and sunny!!

Oh well it's all good: Here are the pics





Here is the video file of the muffler so you can get an idea of how it sounds.. I only have a digital camera that takes short movies so the microphone isn't all that great. I am going to try to get a better video of me at the local strip that the ricers use to steet race. I want to try and get a video of the truck at arround 4-5 grand doing a 3rd gear pull..

Ranger Muffler

 

goodstuff...that's pretty much what mine looked like before I had a professional do mine...here's the strait pipe w/ turn town:

 

im on quite a budget also, been thinkin about picking one up just to have SOME kind of deeper sound, any downsides? other than the name?

 

sound pretty good....not bad for the money....

 

I used to have just a straight pipe running out through the stock pipe.. I cut the muffler off and used flex pipe in it's place..

Well It sounded good but the problem was that my idle went screwy and the MPG went down faster then the Titanic. I also had the problem of the lack of back pressure caused the ATX to have trouble down shifting. It would go into the gear but the motor didn't have enough torque to slow down on hills. Oh and the cop that was going to ticket me for excessive exhaust. (Kind of ironic since I posted in another thread about how the cops arround here don't care about mufflers.)

To answer your question, as far as downsides go. As of yet I have not seen any. My low end torque picked up a lot, the idle is smoother and the truck hauls a$$ on the highway. Plus now with the muffler when I am going down a hill and shift in to 2 or 1 I get a great engine brake..

I am happy to report that i had the day off and decided to burn an entire tank of gas to check were I was at with the millage and it's a considerable gain!! I could get about 175 - 200 miles in the city and about 250 miles highway.. Now I was able to get the trip odo. to 285 in TOWN!!! I will have to measure the truck with this next tank to see if its consistant but thats a big gain. I used the same pump at the same station and the same amount of gas so will see..

hey blkb3 if you want some more info or any help with this drop me a PM.. I have some great info and a nice set of instructions I made up to help a friend who has a ranger..