04-30-2008, 12:11 PM
I made my first foray into true, home-made exhaust work and I can't say it was very pretty :-). I rented a chain-type pipe-cutter from Advance for a weekend and crawled under the truck to get work. After pulling off a couple of the rubber hangers, my back was starting to dislike my gravel driveway. I then set to work on the pipe with the cutter. Much later, I grew extremely pissed off because, in theory, the cutter is supposed to evenly distribute pressure around the entire pipe. Guess what, either I'm retarded, or it doesn't. It took freakin forever to cut through the pipe and I was extremely irate from being poked by rocks. I took a break and started the process over again for the 2nd cut but my frustration level quickly escalated again and I just grabbed my angle grinder to get it done.
Well, that worked like a charm, 2 minutes of minimal work versus 30+ of hard work wins all day every day, just make sure you have taken the necessary precautions that you aren't shooting sparks at your gas tank...
As you can see in the picture below, that results in what essentially an open downpipe on the truck. What self-respecting home mechanic can resist this opportunity to see what how your b00sted vehicle feels? Not me.
![[Image: DSCI0006.jpg]](http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e274/93anthracite/00%20F250/DSCI0006.jpg)
Wow. The snail absolutely screams and the truck is a LOT faster. It starts spooling up noticably the instant you touch the gas pedal and the caucophony of noise in the cabin was blissfull. I had all the windows open :-). One interesting note is that the engine's exhaust note, when the turbo wasn't screaming, actually sounded a lot like a gasser, which I attribute to the fact that it wasn't so muffled that the engine noise overshadowed the exhaust.
Alas, it is entirely too noisy to drive regularly and would get quite irritating on long trips, which are two of the truck's primary duties. While it being 'faster' was nice, it also means I'd be driving faster and using more diesel, which is not cool. As you can see in the picture below, the new muffler is considerably less restrictive than the stocker. The factory exhaust system is 3.5" from the turbo back to the exhaust tip, with the exception of this single choke point. A lot of guys spend hundreds of dollars and get a 4" pipe. I bought this muffler for $55 and it has a straight-through 3.5" design.
![[Image: DSCI0004.jpg]](http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e274/93anthracite/00%20F250/DSCI0004.jpg)
That's where the fun ends.
Mistake #1: I didn't actually measure and mark on the exhaust where I needed to cut. As a result, I cut off about 2 inches too much and I couldn't 'just slip on' the new pipe. D'oh.
Mistake #2: Took it to a shop. I explicitly told them what I needed and I really felt that I had done the vast majority of the work, but I forgot to point out that I was trying to do it super-cheap. They spent a bunch of time trying to find some pipe, couldn't and finally resorted to doing what I told them in the first place and scavenged it from the stock pipe. Then they cut off the hangers and welded onto the new pipe. This was very nice of them, but really unnecessary since the new muffler was probably about half as heavy as the original. I also told them to reuse the original exhaust clamp b/c it worked just fine, but they failed at this too (I brought 2 new ones when I dropped it off, but wanted to return 1 of them)
.
So, I ended up having to pay for 2 hours of labor to get the job done because I didn't make the appropriate measurement. I paid for stupidity :-). The truck did pick up a little power and the new exhaust is definitely flowing a bit better than stock, so overall I am a happy with the mod. It isn't really any louder and I really can't find any downside to it. I haven't filled the truck up and done a mileage test yet, but based on my fuel consumption since, I think I might even be getting better gas mileage out of it now...
Well, that worked like a charm, 2 minutes of minimal work versus 30+ of hard work wins all day every day, just make sure you have taken the necessary precautions that you aren't shooting sparks at your gas tank...
As you can see in the picture below, that results in what essentially an open downpipe on the truck. What self-respecting home mechanic can resist this opportunity to see what how your b00sted vehicle feels? Not me.
Wow. The snail absolutely screams and the truck is a LOT faster. It starts spooling up noticably the instant you touch the gas pedal and the caucophony of noise in the cabin was blissfull. I had all the windows open :-). One interesting note is that the engine's exhaust note, when the turbo wasn't screaming, actually sounded a lot like a gasser, which I attribute to the fact that it wasn't so muffled that the engine noise overshadowed the exhaust.
Alas, it is entirely too noisy to drive regularly and would get quite irritating on long trips, which are two of the truck's primary duties. While it being 'faster' was nice, it also means I'd be driving faster and using more diesel, which is not cool. As you can see in the picture below, the new muffler is considerably less restrictive than the stocker. The factory exhaust system is 3.5" from the turbo back to the exhaust tip, with the exception of this single choke point. A lot of guys spend hundreds of dollars and get a 4" pipe. I bought this muffler for $55 and it has a straight-through 3.5" design.
That's where the fun ends.
Mistake #1: I didn't actually measure and mark on the exhaust where I needed to cut. As a result, I cut off about 2 inches too much and I couldn't 'just slip on' the new pipe. D'oh.
Mistake #2: Took it to a shop. I explicitly told them what I needed and I really felt that I had done the vast majority of the work, but I forgot to point out that I was trying to do it super-cheap. They spent a bunch of time trying to find some pipe, couldn't and finally resorted to doing what I told them in the first place and scavenged it from the stock pipe. Then they cut off the hangers and welded onto the new pipe. This was very nice of them, but really unnecessary since the new muffler was probably about half as heavy as the original. I also told them to reuse the original exhaust clamp b/c it worked just fine, but they failed at this too (I brought 2 new ones when I dropped it off, but wanted to return 1 of them)
.So, I ended up having to pay for 2 hours of labor to get the job done because I didn't make the appropriate measurement. I paid for stupidity :-). The truck did pick up a little power and the new exhaust is definitely flowing a bit better than stock, so overall I am a happy with the mod. It isn't really any louder and I really can't find any downside to it. I haven't filled the truck up and done a mileage test yet, but based on my fuel consumption since, I think I might even be getting better gas mileage out of it now...