Hi Guys, I had a local shop instal my diamond eye 3 inch downpipe and remove the cat this afternoon. I picked the truck up after hours and discovered that it is; (1) louder than my 1983 diesel vw rabbit inside now and (2) rattles worse than my 83 rabbit.....for those of you without the pleasure of being in a rabbit diesel., just take the noise and vibration level of the stock powerstroke and multiply it by at least ten. My former fairly quite f350 now requires my passengers to yell for me to hear them and the radio is almost at full blast to hear it...After getting it home I crawled under it and found what I expected to see and that was the pipe right up against the body.... Normally I do all the work on my vehicles myself but life is super busy right now..... Anyway do you guys think I should take it back to the shop and ask them to either rebend the pipe or hammer the body away from the pipe? Or should I just take the downpiipe off and hammer it away myself? I imagine being that the bolts are all fresh that it may not be a bad or time consuming job? I am a little nervous about taking the truck back to the shop and asking them to beat on it with a hammer.... The good news is the power increase is noticeable with the new downpipe.

Thanks for your thoughts, Dave

 

Yes, You are going to rub a hole in your downpipe if you don't make room for it. If you had a shop do the work, have them fix it.

 

I know exactly what you are experiencing. I had a diesel performance shop install a Diamondeye 3" DP 4" Cat delete as you have and experienced the same noise issue. I took it back to the shop as the DP was rubbing againest the Bellhousing and the other side was rubbing the firewall. They removed the DP and did some pounding on the Firewall where it was rubbing and adjusted the mounting so it would clear the Bellhousing. The shop got it right the second time around and it really made a difference. It was so bad you could feel the vibration on the accelerator pedal.

Plus the jackass installer sawzalled through the cross over pipe when removing the factory DP pipe, that's another horror story that was twice the cost of the Exhaust System.....

 

Guys, thank you for your honest and fast respones. This shop has been doing work for me for at least ten years and it has always been excellent, I think they must have been in a rush this time and just pulled it out of the garage, because you couldn't miss the noise and vibration otherwise. Wrighton, I think you nailed it right on the head! Exactly.

Thanks again,
Dave

 

I have a little bump bump sound on my Banks 3" downpipe. At first I thought something was going on with my front left suspension. It seems pretty minor and I have not yet got under there to do any prying.

When you did the cat delete, did they put a test pipe in or did they do away with the factory flanges and just weld your downpipe to new pipe?

My exhaust is still stock, downpipe back anyhow. I'm thinking of doing some mods but my exhaust system looks perfect. I may start with a test pipe to replace the muffler which Ford claims to be high flow which I think they wrote in the diesel supplement. Or perhaps I will go with a diamond setup as long as it will bolt up to my Banks downpipe.

 

Your DP is rubbing against the firewall/body. I took an air hammer and a long piece of steel rod and pushed the body back. Took 10-15 minutes to do. The difficult part was keeping the air hammer and rod together. It worked like a charm and I didn't have any more problems. Mine would happen when I had a load on the truck. Good luck.

 

Regarding the clearance with a load on the truck which would bring the body / Firewall closer to the DP? I pull a 8,000 LB Travel Trailer and with the EZ Lift Hitch IM just barly kissing the OverLoad Springs. Still have enough clearance with a load and there's no vibration. There's plenty of Posts and threads on other Ford Powerstroke web sites that discuss at lenght about the 3" DP rubbing issues on OBS Fords. I did my home work before the install and knew right away what the issue was and after more Firewall pounding they got it fixed. It's not rocket science, a 3" DP on the 94 - 97 F250 / F350 trucks doesn't fit very well and they have to make adjustments. Yes, take it back.

 

Hi guy's, I got the truck back from the exhaust shop today, they made some clearance between the pipe and body, it is so much better, maybe a tiny bit more noise than stock if at all. The power feels to come on sooner and stronger. These guys cut the cat out for me and welded a straight pipe in, I still have the muffler and intend to keep it. The tone out the rear of the truck sounds the same as stock to me . Next up, 6637 air filter and chip. Thanks for the input guys!