Last week I ordered a Flowmaster cat back system for my 1997 F-150 standard cab long bed 4.2 v6 2wd auto tranny truck, I ordered the Flowmaster kit 17304 which has the single inlet dual outlet 50 series muffler and dual side exit(behind the wheels)exhaust system, I am patiently awaiting its arrival and is scheduled for delivery on wed may 12, I am not looking for any super performance gains, just a little more sound and a little more gain for my towing, I use my truck to haul my Kubota tractor and although it tows fine currently I fugured the duals may help a little with MPG's,

Has anyone had any experience with this setup on a similar vehicle, I searched around and got it for $316.00 plus free shipping which seemed like a good deal to me, Most places wanted from $350-$500 plus some added extra for shipping.

I will update after the exhaust is installed and i start to use it, Supposedly the 50 series mufflers are quieter than the 40 series and do not cause excess cabin noise, We will see

Val

* My original exaust system was the one that exited in front of the passenger side rear wheel, I have noticed that some 97 trucks have this system and some have the exit behind the rear wheel, Quite interesting as to why ford used different exit points.

 

The exaust system came last week and I installed it on friday, It took apx 2 hours to install and was a very easy job, Included all the pipes,clamps hangers and detailed instructions plus included option pipes for rear exit or behind the wheel exit, I chose the behind the rear wheel exit, It also included nice chrome tips, Anyway the exhaust sounds great, Truck has a low rumble at idle and sounds great when you give it the gas, It is a V6 so it does have the typical v6 buzz when you really hit it but it sounds much better than stock, Noise level increase inside the cab is very minimal, I like to listen to my radio so that was a concern for me, no problem with hearing the radio while driving from low to highway speeds, As for performance I would have to say I can feel a little more pulling power on the bottom end and I am sure there is a bit more on the top end but the bottom end for pulling was where I was hoping for it, I have not noticed a fuel mileage increase but have not checked for it and to be honest the truck gets pretty decent fuel mileage as it is so any gain is a bonus.

Val