maz226

In your opinion would you say true dual on the 5.0 gives you more power gains than a catback? is it worth the extra cost? thanks for all the help.

zx12-iowa

Anything after the cat just adds noise without power gains. A tune will net you most power for the $

4.6Intruder

There may be a small gain only because you are getting rid of the factory y pipe which isn't the best flowing design, but other than that only difference will be sound. Only exhaust upgrade that will net you some performance gains will be ditching your factory manifolds and go with long tubes, but that may be more than what you want to do. A custom tune will give more noticeable gains though.

jkenprice1

Aftermarket exhaust won't gain you any power in normal driving.

SteveLord

Yup. Manifold and headers will do it, but you're talking some money there.


Tune will make the biggest difference regardless of no mods or many mods.

scross86

For sure as mentioned by others a tune is the best initial bang for buck but that wasn't your question.

A X-pipe dual 3" exhaust dumping into electric cutouts (that activate at WOT at 3500rpm) after the transmission cross-member then down sizing the exhaust tube size to 2.25 inch or 2.5 inch with proper long tube headers and high flow cats would be the ideal exhaust but also the most costly.

Our stock exhaust gets unnecessary praise in the flow department. It is really good at being quiet and flows very well with the engines requirements in mind at WOT at about 1500-1800 RPM. Beyond that in pressure inside the exhaust starts to increase reaching about 1.9psi at 6500rpm (about the most a tune only 5.0 will carr wind out to). That 1.9psi all things being equal is about 12% power at 6500rpm, which is not peak horsepower rpm keep in mind. Some of this is from memory and i can remember the percent at peak horsepower right off but it will be less than 12%. All that boild down to a max redline gain to about 45 horsepower. This is without headers and they will add a bit more to the game. Without something the help exhaust velocity at low rpm's though you may not enjoy low speed cruising. Thats why I mentioned earlier about the electric cutouts that will come on at wide open throttle above 3500RPM. With a properly sized exhaust that will give a dual mode to the exhaust and win at low and high rpm's.

If your goal isnt to break the bank there are some cheaper options too. The weakest part of our exhaust systems is the resonator tube size, followed quickly by the pipe between the resonator and the muffler (including the inlet to the muffler). 2.5 inch exhaust diamter of the resonator is plenty small for our 5.0L and the 2.75 inch that comes right after it isnt much better. By replacing from the Y pipe merge to the tail pipe after the muffler with a 3 inch version is worth about 8 hp at 6500rpm. There will be no noticeable losses at low rpm as it isnt a major overhaul just the cheapest easiest method.

A 3 inch single pipe is about the same volume as 2.25inch duals and a 3.5 inch is like 2.5 inch duals.

If you kept the oem 2.5 inch y pipe that the truck has and deleted the merge to a single to maintain the 2.5 inch dual even with stock cats should yield about 20-25 horsepower at 6500rpm.

Hope that gives you something to chew on that can be verified with calculations vs opinions that are plentiful here.

maz226

Thanks a lot guys. This gives me a lot to think about.