Stock Exhaust System help?

[cynicalcriminal]

I'd much rather have bought my GT new and saved myself any headaches .. but .. who has a 94-98 black GT sitting in their dealership for sale new? (Yeah I know I'm picky - I dislike the new bodystyle.)

Anyway ... one of the hard parts about my car so far is identify'n any mods the person before me had (I got it through a sleezy used car dealer my family knows - he grabbed it at auction for me so just asking the old owner is out).

The K&N filter was easy to notice (duh), and a few cosmetic things the person before me had done (one of which was to load the door-pockets with BurgerKing coupons - sadly expired ) .. but honestly when it comes to exhaust systems I've always been one of those people that lets the Midas place cram whatever on, and charge it to my credit card.

Anyone have pics of a stock exhaust system I could compare to? Maybe some way just by climbing under there and looking that'd let me know? I've read around and found some nice info about upping my exhaust system for better performance (and sound ), but god knows what is on my car now. Maybe I'll see about getting under my car somehow and snapping a pic or two of it.

Once I'm out of major debt (c'mon Tax return, hurry up) I'm going to invest in a couple mods. Been checking people's profiles here and threads on the StangNet message boards trying to get some good ideas for exhaust systems (I'm still stumped, but working on it).

I'd had a gear-swap planned too .. but .. honestly how am I to know what gears are on it now? .. think my best bet is just to buy everything I need and have it done, and be surprised if the installer calls me and goes "Uhm, its already got 3.73's on it"? $140 for gears, a few hundred$ for install, a couple hundred$ more for a chip or speedcal to fix my gauges .. and maybe its not a difference, and a huge waste of cash.


Anyway .. sorry for sounding uneducated and newbish on all this .. but .. well .. I am. This is my first car I'm actually planning to mod myself, and I'd hate to do it "wrong" or waste what little cash my piddly job supplies me.

[RoushEnvy]

First off welcome. Glad to see another 94-98 on the boards. Most of the guys on this site have stock exhaust or have the roush setup. (Beside's Smoke) The stock exhaust is very restrictive, the one thing that I hate the most is that the factory H-Pipe has 6 Cats on it. 2 right off the connection to the headers, and 4 more after the drop bend.

A good setuup that you might want to go with is a Flowmaster system. Alot of times you can just change the mufflers out but not all the time. If you want try a Magna Flow system, or even Bassani. After you do the Cat-back set-up get an X-pipe. Bassani has a good one, but a few guys have had good experience with MAC, one of the newer owners (Matt) even went with YO Dude Perf, supposed to sound very good. Hopefully that will help alittle bit maybe some of the other guys can put a few words in to help as well.

[new2roush]

Originally posted by cynicalcriminal


I'd had a gear-swap planned too .. but .. honestly how am I to know what gears are on it now? .. think my best bet is just to buy everything I need and have it done, and be surprised if the installer calls me and goes "Uhm, its already got 3.73's on it"?

Welcome to the site. Figuring out what gears you have is not too difficult. If you are pretty sure it is the original gears, the vin # will tell you. Your local Ford dealer can decipher the vin for you, or a good repair manual will tell you what the vin codes are. But an easy way to tell is to jack a rear tire off the ground (both tires if you have limited slip)and put the tranny in neutral. Rotate one of the tires (by hand)one revolution, and and count how many times the drive shaft rotates. For example, if the tire rotates once and the d shaft rotated 3.55 times, you have 3.55 gears. This method won't be extremely precise, but it will be close enought to make a pretty educated guess.

[cynicalcriminal]

I've seen a few people around with MAC offroad H pipes that liked them enough I thought of going that route. Most of them just say that the instant you get rid of all the extra Cats you'll notice a big diff in power output. 6 seems like WAY too many




new2 - thanks a ton .. thats simple stuff I *should* know, but don't .. and will help alot. I'll drag it up on jackstands maybe this weekend and spin the wheels a few times and see if I can come up with something.

Sadly .. once AGAIN my money just slipped out of my fingers ... my driver's side door is sagging lately, took it to get looked at, and they tell me it'll cost me a couple hundred to replace the hinges that are worn out. every time I get a few bucks to mod something, it vanishes.

[DeathVark]

Originally posted by cynicalcriminal
I've seen a few people around with MAC offroad H pipes that liked them enough I thought of going that route. Most of them just say that the instant you get rid of all the extra Cats you'll notice a big diff in power output. 6 seems like WAY too many

i have MAC ProChamber - it is still on the stock system (my side exhaust is waiting it's turn to be installed), but the sound is already very nice and noticeble power gains

[RoushEnvy]

how much was the pro-chamber? Did you get it from MAC direnctly or what?

[DeathVark]

nup, i got it from ummm, some company in Cali, if you want, i'll look up for you. It came in MAC box, MAC wrapping and (i'm not sure about that, though - was a couple of weeks ago) MAC name engraved on one of the tubes.
I paid 235.00 SHIPPED for a 98 PC (on a MAC web-site the 98 is one of the most expensive, more $$ than 96-97). But i got new model, 2.5'' tubing, vs 3'' (again, it used to be 3'' for 98s)
Max