Title says it all really; It might be because I'm not use to trucks, it might be because I'm not used to V8s in general (I hail from a different country where v8s are few and far between) but my 90 f150 sounds like a cheap vacuum cleaner. Is there anything I could do to give it a bit more rumble? A bit more life maybe? Right now the exhaust pipes are 1.5in wide. Seems a bit on the thin side to me. Either way, any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Sure, there are ALWAYS louder mufflers you can buy. Since I'm old and half deaf I tell my local exhaust guy to install the loudest he has, so I can hear if it were to stall at a red light. He installed flowmasters, and a plain jane small V-8 sounds "loud and bad". Albeit with no hot rod camshaft lope. But, loud, which is what I want being deaf in one ear, and having a trio of junky old trucks that always need something done. My "new" and "nice" truck is a $2K 1997 supercab with around 180,000 miles on it.
Any type of glass pack muffler is really loud too. Like Cherry Bombs or something.
You may have bad clutch fan on front of engine giving you a "plane taking off" vacuum cleaner sound? Does it overheat any at any time?

 

The factory converters are very effective mufflers. Removing the muffler usually will not change overall "loudness", but it will change the tone. Where are you measuring the pipes that are 1.5" wide?

 

Now, that is very true. my flatbed tailpipe is rusted off behind the converter, and it's not obnoxiously loud. I "could" tolerate it, like previous owner, but don't intend to, because it's not a pleasant sound of straight 6, it doesn't sound "good". I did forget about the converter, I was thinking of my 84, which has no converter and has duals (ran down one side due to duel fuel tanks).

 

I took my 90 F250 302 and 5 speed to a muffler shot that took out the muffler, 2nd cat and put in a flow master cat in it. 3 inch pipe from the cat to a y pipe to 2 1/4 out each side at the back. It has a nice burbly idle, little bit of gargle and sounds pretty ratty like a 60's truck would with an aftermarket exhaust.

 

I wonder if it sounds like a vacuum cleaner because your Fan Clutch is out. The fan clutch is a common item to go bad and it is loud and sounds like a vacuum cleaner. These V8's are pretty quiet when running properly. Just a thought.

 

Thanks for the response people! How would I go about checking the fan clutch for proper operation?

 

rla2005 I measured at the tailpipe

 

PS: I'm in Texas, no emissions for that year; should I just delete the cats?

 

WITH THE ENGINE OFF... OFF. As in not running. (Sorry explained this to my brother once over the phone and assumed he would know better, I was wrong) Grab the fan and see if it is difficult to turn. If it seems pretty stiff it may have failed.

 

Assuming the muffler has dual outlets, 1.5" is about right. 1.5" X 2 will flow a fair amount of air, that is not your bottleneck. Good advice to check the fan clutch.

Even though you do not have emission testing I would suggest to keep some type of converter on the truck. Replacing the factory setup would be highly advisable. A single modern 3-way converter is not a bottleneck like the antiquated "mufflers" the factory installed.

 

depending on which v8 your pipe might be too small

 

Do you call him Lefty now?

And yeah, just grab the fan and see if it moves. It should move easily, but have a little resistance behind it. The clutch in my dad's '87 was locked solid when we got it. When I removed it and set it aside, what was left of the fluid inside leaked out past what was left of the seal and made a mess on the floor.

 

Well good news I guess, the fan moves freely with little resistance... With the motor off :P Does your brother also change his lawnmower blades while it's running?

Regarding the exhaust system, I found this: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/m...rd/model/f-150 Do you think it would be a good upgrade (provided of course I throw in decent mufflers after that)

 

Highly recommend that Magnaflow y-pipe with converter.