cat back exhaust: to get or not to get?

[DarkFox1]

I put on a flow50 about a year ago.. I felt no change.. but I thought I was crazy.. well my 5.slow dynoed a few weeks ago.. maybe a month ago.. and its at 170 at the wheels.. so that proves to me that it did exactly nothing but change the way the truck sounds.

I dont think a totally stock motor even needs as much of an exhaust system as what it came with to be optimized, much less more


ahem.. and there is nothing wrong with my truck.. cos I know somneone will try and say its just me.. its not.. 3 or 4 shops and 1 dyno run cannot lie..

 

[tbomb]

as it turns out, im not going with a catback setup - this thread was intended for the short term, before the shop put a system on, when i still had a choice. i went with the stock system since i couldnt make up my mind. i figured that a stock system is fine, but if i picked an aftermarket system hastily, it could have been a big mistake.

 

[aldive]

Originally posted by DarkFox1
I put on a flow50 about a year ago.. I felt no change.. but I thought I was crazy.. well my 5.slow dynoed a few weeks ago.. maybe a month ago.. and its at 170 at the wheels.. so that proves to me that it did exactly nothing but change the way the truck sounds.

It proves nada unless you had a baseline dyno befor the installation.

 

[DarkFox1]

stock HP is 210 at the flex, I have 170 at the wheels, I dont know what kind of drivetrain power loss there is.. but that is pathetic.. no v8 on gods earth should have less tan 200hp at the rear wheels.. ESPECIALLY with an exhaust system. pretty much everyone I ask trells me 170 is a STOCK rwhp rating for the X

nothing will ever convince me that my exhaust ever did anything to improve my performance, unless I see undeniable results form my car itself. which I dont see how that would be possible.

I think you made the right desicion with the stock setup... if you ever change your mind the stuffs out there anyway.

 

[tbomb]

well, on the average, you lose about 20% of your power through your drivetrain to heat and noise. so 20% of 210 is 42; so 210 - 42 = 168, which sounds about right.

back in the days of the fox body mustang, those things had less than 200 rwhp. i think they were only rated at about 210-215 hp at the crank.

and, yeah, i just figured i didnt want to screw around anymore with exhaust until i was 100% sure that i knew exactly what i wanted - 2 years ago i went through 3 catbacks in a summer to try to find one that i liked, and you know what the end result was?...i ended up with a stock system in the end, heh.

 

[DarkFox1]

see? 168.. I have 170 dyno proven.. thats 2hp for $400? more than enough proof for me that 1. ford trucks CANNOT be modded to get any decent power from them because of the crappy computer systems that they use and 2. catback exhaust systems do nothing for any stock motors as a standalone mod.

hehe, well, now you know each one of them's sound and all, it was probablly costly, but you learned a good bit about those systems I'd say .

correction.. to point #1.. adding "w/o extreme expenditures".. trolls truck is living proof that a ton of money results in half a ton of HP

 

[aldive]

Why do you even want to mod a car/trucj? You are ther most negative person I have ever seen.

 

[99explorer5.0]

He is not negative ... he is REALISTIC. Everyone told me that with the KKM i would be burning all 4 tires from a stoplight and i would need to reinforce my drivers seat because of the addition of a few G's at launch and it did NOTHING. My Gibson also did nothing. The only thing those mods did was add noise which is what i was expecting. If you want performance buy a sports car. Dont buy a top heavy truck that isnt made for speed.

You can not make Chicken Salad out of Chicken ****.

 

[DarkFox1]

I dont have $4-10k to dump into a little umph for a daily driver, I figured I could get away with about $1000 or less to get enough to drive in daily traffic with the 5.slow.. I was severley disappointed with the results.. or lack of results, trying to find something to help the slowness has only yeilded very very expensive results ($1k cam swaps $4500 superchargers, and lots more gimmicks like chips and cats and such) the whole thing has left a horrible taste in my mouth, and i'm reminded of this failure every single time I get in my car and wreslte it down the road.

I spent probablly near $1k trying to toruble shoot this slowness on top of the $400 on the little kkm and catback, nothing comes out unusual, the trucks frustratingly slow.

I love cars, I love modding them, driving them maintaining them, we have about 6.. 2 fords 4 chevys, all I ask is that my drive to campus and back every day is enjoyable, for this vehicle. I didn't tihnk that was too much to ask.

I'm only negative about the results of the simple mods that I've done on threads like this because I've seen nothing but signs that there was no feasbile gains from the products, to me thats a waste of money, and I think I shoiuld at least give my perspective of the situation to people contemplating these mods.

btw, you can make a chicken salad from chicken ****.. but it'd taste god awful I'm sure lol

 

[expo5.0]

alright, intake and exhaust are never gonna do anything alone other than give you some noise.

however, they put you in a position which allows other "real" performance modifications to work.

you need to look at them as a way to get the sound and look of a higher performance vehicle, or as a gateway to real mods. you can't expect anything more than that since if it were that easy to make more power, why wouldn't ford have done it?

 

[tbomb]

Originally posted by expo5.0
alright, intake and exhaust are never gonna do anything alone other than give you some noise.

however, they put you in a position which allows other "real" performance modifications to work.

you need to look at them as a way to get the sound and look of a higher performance vehicle, or as a gateway to real mods. you can't expect anything more than that since if it were that easy to make more power, why wouldn't ford have done it?

exactly.

since i was the one who started this thread, i feel that i should mention that i wasnt looking for a catback to unleash any mighty power, just to get a good sound.

heres a good analogy (well, i dont know if its good, but its definitely an analogy ): imagine a water pipe, like a water main under the street outside. now imagine some big rocks just sitting on the bottom inside the pipe with water being pumped through it. now, if you take out those rocks, the water isnt just gonna start flowing faster, but it gives the water company an opportunity to pump more water through it, and when they finally do pump more water through it, the final results will be much better than if they left the rocks in there.

well, thats actually a relatively crumby analogy and i dont even know if it demonstrated the point i was getting at, but i typed too much to justify me just deleting it, heh.

 

[expo5.0]

i swear i'd have 4,000 posts if i never wrote a bunch of crap and than just said screw it and erased it, everyone else do that all the time? i almost did it here since this isn't related to the topic, but i can't delete a post about deleting posts.

 

[DarkFox1]

I probablly comment way more than I sholud

tbomb I think thats a very good analogy, but the point is.. I'm not going to be pumping more water.. cos to that yo uhave to spend ridiculous amounts of money. cams, heads, headers, cats, superchargetrs, mas, all far too expensive of mods for a truck thats not going to be drag racing.

I dont think a daily driver should have more than $1k in performance mods.

 

[expo5.0]

all that said, for anyone who is thinking of modifying a 5.0 in the future

intake, exhaust, a chip, and a real shift kit (like the baumann) will from my experience make a real noticeable difference for under a thousand all together! it won't make you a god at the track or anything but it will really improve the way your truck drives, and the amount of fun you have driving around.

 

[aldive]

Originally posted by DarkFox1
I dont think a daily driver should have more than $1k in performance mods. [/QUOTE

Tell that to Troll and Alec and others.....

 

[DarkFox1]

my transmission shifts so rough now I'd be afraid to do any kind of kit on it. I almost did a chip, but backed down since I can't afford the high octane, and the changed shifting parameters could be detremental to the already feeble 4R70W that struggles to keep up with the low HP 5.slow as it is. intake and exhaust I already did, as you know heh. so I've considered that stuff, but i've been told a lot of it is either risky, detremental or a gimmick. I want to stick with things I KNOW.. I mean I know for a fact a cam would give you HP.. and heads.. and a supercharger.. but those things are all $1k or more, mostly more.

 

[expo5.0]

from what i now know, the most important thing you could have done right when you started having problems would have been the baumann kit. no lie, it made as much of an improvement in the overall feel of my vehicle as the cam.

 

[DarkFox1]

well, according to the dealership 3 times, 2 free lance auto repair shops and 1 transmission shop.. my transmission is fine.. but I can't help but think when it lunges into gears and get stuck in neutral between shifts, and wont go into drive from park, and feels like I'm having to pull a house up a hill................................................... etc. etc. that theres something wrong, but I am not about ot even consider putting the money into this search and destroy. I've spent too much on mantainence already, theres nothing wrong apparently, the 4R70W must just suck REAL bad.

wont a shift kit make it shift harder? that would make my eyes pop out of my head. thats the reason I didn't get a chip.. more than anyhting.. because of the transmission shifting change it makes.

 

[99explorer5.0]

Not for nothing but have you concidered trading it in for something else that could perhaps give you less problems?

 

[expo5.0]

you can adjust every parameter witht he baumann kit. you could put the firmness on stage 1 and it wouldn't shift any harder than stock, but the rest of the kit would still improve the performance of the tranny