I have a hole in the pipe just in front of the muffler. Easiest would be to cut off and install new muffler a few inche forward of present location.

Question is, what free flowing muffler can I get that won't be loud, or much louder than stock. Wife's van and if I make it very loud she will get mad. Also, being an aerostar 3.0 it would look silly with a loud performance sounding exhaust. Actually it can be somewhat loud so long as relatively quiet inside. So no resonance allowed.

I put a Flowtech Raptor on my F150 and it is nice, but a tad louder than I want for the Aerostar, but that is a 2.25 inch and the aerostar has 2 inch piping. Maybe will be queter? It's design is like the factory muffler, but remains 2" throughout, whereas I bet the factory muffler restricts down to even 1.5 inch diameter inside as a means of quieting it down.

 

About the quietest performance muffler would be the Dynomax Superturbo. It is a chambered and baffler muffler like an OEM unit, but it has flow directors, while an OEM unit does not. It should be almost as quiet as stock and still give some performance gain. Or you can do what we did on my mom's van. We put two straight through mufflers. After going through two mufflers, there wasn't a lot of sound left unless you really pushed the throttle.

 

whatever you put in, make sure it has a heat shield to protect the passenger compartment, the floor in these gets hot over the muffler/cat

 

if your too worried about too much sound... go with what ever and put a resonator in(if you can find a spot for it.) my friend's civic has the whole fart can set up on it, but is crazy quiet because of a resonator he had installed as well. just my two cents

 

The Magnaflows I added to my TurboCoupe were real quiet and flowed well.
I don't know what to do about heat shields but it is a valid concern.

 

I replaced the muffler on mine a few years ago with a generic "turbo" muffler. The flex coupler was rusting out, so I replaced it at the same time. I just cut the pipe behind the second O2 sensor and used a coupler and clamped it all together. That lasted a few years, and then I had to replace the flex coupler and muffler again this past week.

I got another flex coupler and tailpipe, and replaced it all from the cats back. I just went with a plain old glasspack "cherry bomb". The 2 cats muffle it down well enough to make the cherry bomb surprisingly quiet.

Just a nice, mellow exhaust rumble, not too intrusive, and not too loud outside the vehicle. Works for me, and the cherry bomb will last longer than a welded seam muffler.

 

Not sure I need a heat shield. Though the OEM type muffler that was on there had them, there is 6 to 7 inches between the muffler and the floor pan. I don't see that it would be a problem.

I installed the Dynomax Super Turbo. A tad costly compared to my Raptor (like more than 2x as much). It is not exactly quiet, but certianly not loud either. All depends on whether my wife gets angry now. If so, I'll be looking to do the resonator. I can do a resonator about 10 inches long and maybe 2.5 inch ID, vs the pipe being 2" OD. This would be easiest to install at the tailpipe (would that be a good location and size?), so there is only 2-3 inches of 2 inch pipe after it to the atmosphere. Could put right behind muffler, but right not that is all installed and rather not pull apart.

Another option is to add about 4-5 feet of tailpipe, by crossing the tailpipe across the rear end (spare is not there) to outlet on left. That would double the tailpipe length and quiet it some I guess.

Other than that, I like it. Sounds pretty good, though I don't think the Dynomax sound is as nice as the Raptor. Has a kind of blurr like a bad muffler, which I think comes from the glass packing.

Will the glass packing eventually go away and it get louder?

Suprisingly, the OEM type muffler does not look like it got restrictive inside, but that third tube you never know unless you open it up. One of the end chambers was about 7 inches deep though.

It's interesting that the OEM and the Dynomax are both turbo style, so why the OEM so quiet? Must be a restricted third tube. Or perhaps since the Dynomax is about 70 percent as long, the smaller case size results in more volume, so I have heard.

I'd like to point out that Bear River is my kind of salesman, to recommend another company's product when it is the right product. I discussed it at length with him by email and determined his company's mufflers were not going to be the right thing for this situation (quietness being needed). For sure when my Raptor goes out, I will be contacting Bear River for one of his mufflers. His muffler sound clip sounded better anyway, but as I said, a bit louder than I could do here.

 

Actually, a cherry bomb will not last longer than a welded seam muffler. A cherrybomb will only last as long as the packing inside, which isn't very. Glasspacks are not real mufflers and were designed to be cheap. They are also highly restrictive.

 

Pull a Cherry Bomb out of the package at the store some time and look down it. When I did, I noticed a smaller diameter tube inside than at the inlet/outlet.

If I want a Cherry Bomb type muffler, I will check out Flowtech, which has a similar product, as well as the Purple Hornies.

 

I know what cherry bombs are. This one is a straight, bulbous tube with a perforated tube inside. Same inlet and outlet diameter, clamps up to the rest of the system with a minimum of hassle. No outer jacket to rust off and disintegrate. I've used plenty of them over the years.

I just wanted to grab something legal off the shelf to quiet it down to a tolerable level. It runs fine, better than OEM and I'm not that concerned if the inside blows out. Rust is a bigger deal up here in the north country; I'm sure you road salt guys can relate to that.

Some of us are perfectly happy with the simpler things. It was quick, it was easy, and it works. I never claimed to be an expert, I'm just participating in the conversation a bit. I'll know better next time, won't I?

 

For that matter, check out the Thrush Turbo and you'll see a similar ID restriction. The Dynomax is made/owned by same company as Thrush, but is not restricted.

 

No , not offended, and sorry if I came across that way, I just don't consider glasspacks to be a real muffler. Not really sure if it flows better than OEM, but they do have a good sound. Nothing outflows the straight through type mufflers. But if you want quiet performance, thats where you have to be careful what you put on, and it also depends on what you define to be too loud. The Aerostar has excellent interior acoustics, but unfortunately, it is this feature that makes the interior resonate and amplify certain frequencies. If you have something that is loud and deep underneath it, it can resonate through the interior at certain rpms. It may sound really good from the drivers seat, but it can be overwhelming to any passengers in the back. We knew the Magnaflow was quieter than the Flowmaster, so we put a Magnaflow on my mom's van. The resulting resonation was overpowering when the van was accelerating or cruising at freeway speeds. We added a second smaller one in front of the main muffler, and between the two, it is about where we liked it, but obviously two mufflers isn't cheap.

I put our Fullblown 50 series on my personal van, and found it doesn't drone much at all, yet bottom line is that it is louder than my parents Magnaflow. Not sure what it would sound like from the back seat, but I don't haul people, so its not really a concern. If in doubt, I could always add a resonator.

 

Here is a website where a guy cut apart a Cherry Bomb and found it is restrictive. Worth reading his description of the restriction:

http://www.greenfries.info/Resonator.htm

Always a good idea to peer down the inlet and outlet tubes of a muffler before buying.

 

Bear, I'll agree with that. Even though they call the straight thru style glasspacks "mufflers", I'd agree that it might be better to call them resonators. But, that's all I need to meet my needs, and it was a quick and easy fix. Grab and go, clamp it in, and I'm done. As long as it doesn't run any worse than OEM, I'm good. Looking straight thru the tube, it has no restrictive narrowing that I can see, but I didn't mike it out.

I still have both factory cats on mine, and the Y pipe is still in good shape. The cats attentuate the exhaust noise enough on their own to let me run the glasspack with tolerable results, even from the back seat. With an OEM tailpipe out behind the rear wheel as designed, it sounds OK.

It's a stone reliable daily driver, it just needs to keep me from walking. The simpler, the better.

I think I do need to stop calling all bullet shaped red glasspacks "cherry bombs", though. I think it's holdover from my gearhead days. This one is a Thrush glasspack. Just yanked it off the shelf at Advance and took it home to install.

 

Aero PA. Sounds like you got some good ones. Yeah, I think Cherry Bomb became a sort-of generic term, like Kleenex. Anyway, glad yours sounds good. And no need to mike it out as the occular evaluation will do just fine.

You still be a gearhead, no? Don't give up on the gearhead days, they are the best.