If the craziest thing you do is occasionally punch if outta a rest stop to 70, I think you should put some faith in the thousands of professional engineers and billions of dollars worth of R&D Ford has poured into F series pickup trucks over the last 70+ years. Imagine Ford with a team of like 100 people talking about the F150 exhaust. They have test vehicles, dynos, all sorts of sensors and test equipment. Don't you think that crack team of engineers could design a great exhaust system? Don't you think one of these folks told Ford... if we upsized the exhaust by 0.25" the engine may make an extra 10hp! That would be a significant gain, and may be just what they needed to edge out the other thousands of engineers and billions of dollars Chevy, Dodge, and Toyota are pouring into engine and light truck development.

 

Yes, and generally I do have a lot of faith in them, otherwise I would've purchased something else. However, there is another important consideration: cost. For all of the examples of parts that have been perfected over decades to perform flawlessly (the 10R80 comes to mind here....it is so far ahead of the 5R55W that it's hard to believe the same company designed both), there still many that didn't work out very well . On the 5R55x transmission, somebody decided to put a steel piston in an aluminum sleeve, wherein the steel piston acts like a tool, boring out the aluminum piston until the transmission becomes a 5 speed. Fortunately, a company built a new piston with a viton ring, which seals the passage and fixes the issue. On those Explorers, somebody at Ford didn't understand that a piece of plastic glued to a bigger piece of metal would either fall off as the glue failed or crack (all Gen 3 Explorers have cracked rear panel on the back lift gate). Size is NOT a cure all for poor engineering, though Ford's culture has improved quite a bit since then. The speakers are another area where manufacturers globally put in the cheapest product that can produce a sound, and upcharge drastically for marginally better speakers when there are no fewer than 20, maybe 30 aftermarket makers who produce far better quality parts. Exhaust systems globally fall under that category of "put something legal, safe and quiet on the truck, and we can slowly improve it over the model life to get slight horsepower improvements for marketing.". There is also the issue that I live in Texas, and am unlikely to drive a single mile in California. This means that I can legally replace the single most restrictive component of my exhaust, the cats, with a much less restrictive part. Ford is legally constrained here, or else would have to make a CA specific model, and has a fairly good rationale for just building exhaust systems to the lowest common denominator.

There are a lot of examples wherein Ford, despite its resources, buys parts from expert makers. The 10R80 was a collaboration, but the transfer case was by Borg Warner while the rear differential was made by Eaton. Again, in many cases I completely agree with your argument, but I also acknowledge that there are plenty of exceptions to that logic, even if it is globally accurate. The most relevant to this discussion is the exhaust manifold, which was small and often warped on the first generation 3.5L. It is also a bear to replace, so part of my decision tree is "Did Ford successfully re-engineer the manifold or would it be wise to replace that as part of the exhaust upgrade?"

I hope that helps.

 

Yeah stating that Ford engineers know exactly what they are doing is a joke. They have designed many parts that fail well above average, aka 5.4 3valve timing systems. Excellent idea to put plastic guides for a chain internally.

 

Thats just being cheap.

But I bet virtually everything about the exhaust is fine tuned to maximize efficiency for the typical use case of an F150. Unless you are running a hot tune and pushing a lot more exhaust through the pipes, stock is probably pretty damn good.

 

If that's all you want to do, OP, you're *massively* overthinking this. Put 87 octane in your truck, leave it stock, and be happy. Follow the severe service schedule and a 5K OCI for extra protection. If one of those "brittle" (not really) connections becomes a problem, they're almost all well documented 'round these forums... have it fixed or fix it yourself.

 

I mean, that's how just about every single timing chain system works....but yeah just look at the exploding rear windows, door lock problems, IWEs, etc.

All in all though, OP you're massively overthinking this whole thing and you're looking at an outrageous amount of money, time or both for it be done even hinting at tasteful and all for a difference that you won't be able to measure without millions of dollars of test equipment that pretty much only the OEs have

 

Yes, that's what I'm trying to avoid. It may be that I get 90% of the possible benefit from having a Flowmaster 70 series welded in place of the stock muffler, deleting the resonator and replacing the factory cats with 49 state Flowmaster cats all while keeping the stock exhaust diameter.

 

Update: I saw a Tundra with a stack exhaust on Bonehead Truckers last week, and wanted to thank the kind people who pointed out what an awful aesthetic decision this would've been.

 

If only we could see all our mistakes before they took place.....

 

tundra with stacks...LMFAO. Imagine a Honda Ridgeline with stacks...