I want to take off the muffler on my truck 03 f250 gas engine v8 i was wondering if anyone knows if its gonna hurt the engine or anything? i just like the sound of it, it sounds deeper and throaty but i dont want to get flow masters yet thanks

 

my sister used to have a '98 f150 v8 flareside (red truck, it looked BEAUTIFUL, till she rolled/totalled it!) and she had straight pipes from cat back, no muffler, sounded awesome! and we didn't have any problems besides inspecion

 

First off, if you have smog inspoections they will be all over that. Also police officers tend to bust people who stand out. Loud trucks stand out. Many states have noise level laws and the fines can be hefty.

Depending on your vehicle removing the muffler could cause head warping which is expensive to fix. But assuming you have a catalytic converter between the engine and the removed muffler, this will be less of a problem. If you have just a straight short pipe from the engine then warpage can be a problem. Also if you live where it snows short pipes can lead to Carbon Monoxide poisoning, another reason short pipes are illegal in most states.

Some engines rely on the backpressure from the mufflers to allow the emissions controls to work properly. If the computer gets confused by lack of pressure you can have driveability problems and worse performance and mileage.

Not all this will happen but depending on the engine and where you live you could have some or all of these problems.

One other thing, after awhile you get really tired of the constant racket and on long trips those pipes can drone and be real irritating. Like the guy told me when I bought my first new car, "someday you will appreciate a car that runs quietly and doesn't make your ears ring".

A 2003 F250 is an awful nice truck to turn into a beater sounding vehicle.

Been there done that, had slight head warpage, ringing ears, nasty looks from the cops and got real tired of it.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

What is the mechanism there, how does that happen?

 

With the size of the catalytic converter on the F250, I really don't see a problem with removing the muffler. But, you will need to replace it with some sort of pipe, dumping right off of the cat is not a good idea. I used a flowmaster 40 series origional with a pipe out the side on my truck, and i was dissapointed that it was not loud at all, and I have NO interrior ressonance. I think the cat muffles the engine just fine. Take both the cat amd muffler off ,and It will be really loud, and the performance My or may not suffer.

No disrespect to teh poster above me, but I have never heard of a head warping from the lack of a muffler. Our race cars have open headers with no mufflers, and not a problem yet. With the cat in place, there should be no degradation in performance, but you may see a problem with straight pipes and no cats. As was previously mentioned, the computer may not like not having backpressure.

 

well thanks for the advice its great ive taken the muffler apart from the last section so it ends about a foot infront of the rear tires and it sounds good and runs ok for the 2 blocks i ran it so i dont know what the long term affect are ill try it by just sliding it off for now and drive for a little longer to see what it does Again thanks for the advice, Steve

 

ive had my muffler off and straight piped since august and havent had any computer problems. i like the sound of it and its not bad at all cruising at 80 on the highway, but i am 20. i got pulled by a cop yesterday telling me that the speed limit in the parking lot was 10 not 40, he asked me what kind of exhaust system i had and he said it sounded pretty good and he let me go.

 

I've seen plenty of modern fuel injected trucks running straight pipes after the cat, and I've done the same thing on older carb'ed engines. The cat keeps it quiet enough.

In 2000 or so, a buddy of mine bought a new Ram. First thing he did was take it to a shop and have pipes put on after the cat. He decided that wasn't the right sound, so he went back and got some resonator tips. It sounded pretty decent to me.

 

My new to me truck had pipes straight back from the CAT when i bought it, which sounded good starting up in the morning and driving around town as long as you kept it below 2300 rpm's..

Above that it sounded like total crap and getting on the freeway it was just plain awful...until i got up to speed and the RPM's dropped down.

But I loved the sound below 2300 rpms.. however do to traveling the highway alot I went and had a muffler put back on the truck, which as a side note resulted in about 1.5mpg gain. (then again the 1.5mpg may just be the weather getting warmer around here).

 

You think taking off the muffler might free up some pony's or just the opposite?

 

Agreed i ran my truck today with the muffler off and it sounds great at low rpms but up at high its just crappy soundin and when im on the highway its hard to hear on the phone too in fact the no muffler rattles my seat more that my 12" behind my seat sometimes lol ive put the muffler back on for now i think ill look into a res. tip or somthing