I ordered a WickedFlow MAX 13SC250 O/C 2.50" 13" Body from Bear River Converters on 06/30/09(late birthday present to myself).



Receiving date would have been on 07/03/09 but the office was closed for Fourth of July(God Bless our troops) so I received it on 07/06/09, that following Monday. Drove around with in my back seat for a couple days before I snapped a couple pictures and decided on where to get it installed and how. Buddy said to do dumps like he did so it would be louder(which my wife says how I did it is not loud enough) and a co-worker mentioned the tone would be deeper if I had the tailpipe(the way I did it).

Personally I like the tone. Not to loud unless I stand on it. I can actually tell if my truck is running when I use my remote start now. Seems my personal favorite tone is right around 2000-2500rpm from the inside anyways. If my stereo is on I can not here any drone. Here are a couple sound clips.






Since I have not opened up my intake yet or gotten a tuner I doubt I am getting any extra power yet. But she sounds nice.

 

Nice work. That truck sounds sharp and snappy. Its not over the top, but has a bit of a snarl to it. Doesn't sound hollow at all. Are you planning of doing a video of how it sounds inside the truck?

Great work on the videos themselves too.

 

I am going to sooner or later. If nothing else so I have a baseline for when ever I get around to redoing the interior with some dynamat. I like the tone when I goose it under some load. Doesn't reproduce well with it in park. Might rig up something to have a recording near the pipe while I drive.

As for the video, thanks. I need to do something with abit more eye candy...staring at the wheel listening to exhaust is fine and dandy but it could use alittle something extra. I would suggest my wife being in the video but she might shoot me for my troubles.

 

Sounds good! I have been searching for a new muffler! I have stock 06 SC at the moment. Did you use stock pipe after the muffler? Do you have a picture or two of it installed? This is the tone I have been looking for! Did you install it yourself?

Looking forward to the pics and any suggestions!

 

Had a guy local to where I work on the NE side of Houston.

I will run downstairs and take a couple pics. Stock pipe...the guy just kind angle cut it after adding a bit of pipe after the muffler to make up for the loss in muffler length.

So far my attempts to get a sound recording inside my truck have just gotten road noise and general clatter from stuff in the cab. I might see if I can borrow an actual recorder of some sort with a better microphone.




Kind of oddly installed...shouldn't it be horizontal or does it matter? Also debating on getting a tip or not.

Unrelated to exhaust but should my drive-shaft be that rusty looking? 06 with 15k miles...

 

My 06 has 29,000 miles on it, and the drive shaft looks somewhat rusty. But then I would anticipate that where I am at with the winter salt and all!

I had a Ravin muffler installed on my Ram, and it was installed same as your picture, no problems....

Thanks for the pics, and i think i will be getting one just gotta figure out how and when to install it!

 

do you take the truck down to the beaches? Because the muffler has alot of surface rust on it for it only being around a month old. the muffler can be mounted vertically, it shouldn't effect anything, had my old dodge's muffler mounted that way and if you look at the newer dodges (dont know about the 09) but they have have a smaller second muffler mounted sideways too. so it is commonly done if space is an issue or the lineup of the inlet/outlet on the muffler in relation of the factory pipes. Dont know why it would be vertical in this case though cause there should have been enough room but wont hurt anything performance wise, might hold a bit more water inside the muffler case is about the only negative i can think of.

As for the driveshaft, i seen new 08/09 trucks with rust all over the undercarriage so i think it is "normal" since there isn't alot, if any, coating (ex: paint) on the driveshaft so the constant humidity, air from the gulf, and such down here just finds all the areas without paint. Then again, i could be wrong that is just my opinion.

 

Water from typical puddles and such but not to Galveston yet. Yeah I hear short trips not getting the muffler hot enough to dry them out will kill them faster. I like the tone, not enough in the cab for me to get much of a sound recording unless I am hammering the throttle or windows down. Road noise and crap jingling/clattering in the cab mask the "drone" at highway speed(1800-2100rpm). I have some sound clips that I will get hosted up sometime this week hopefully.

As for the surface rust on the muffler itself... I don't think it is going to be a problem anytime real soon but I will keep an eye on it. Figured with any steel that gets hot and cools often that the rust would be a fact of life unless I was in a very low humidity area(so basically in Houston I am toast stopping rust).

 

The muffler is made from T409 stainless. It doesn't rust in the typical sense. It is not corrosion proof by any means though. But it will last at least as long as the stock stainless pipe.

 

Its not constructed of aircraft grade stainless- that's why it has surface rust on it! I like the sound and your install is fine.

Just an observation from another Bear River Post where they specifically blasted glass pack muffler design resulting in poor performance. In addition to 3rd party multiple flow test conducted in both dyno & cfm bench testing which proved the statement inaccurate, the

WickedFlow MAX IS A GLASS PACK PERFERATION DESIGNED BASED MUFFLER!

Check out Allied, Edelbrock, Magnaflow race & Borla- they all use the same basic design principlas. The only difference is the available length, perforation size and quantity of sound absorbing material (that doesn't have a thing to do with flow)!

 

Amazing how leaving out parts of the truth makes it false isn't it. Yes i have blasted glasspacks for their terrible flow. And you attempt to make me look like a liar by comparing my muffler to a glasspack because its a straight through design. Had you taken note of why a glasspack is a poor choice for performance, or even really looked at them yourself, you would find that what I say about them is true.

Glasspacks have louvers that aggressively protrude into the exhaust stream. This creates turbulence within a small space. Its kinda like a pitstop for your exhaust. But you don't want your exhaust to stop, you want to keep it moving. Those louvers create resistance to flow and that in turn creates backpressure.

There are lots of other differences between our mufflers and glasspacks. Since you comments are about flow i will elaborate on that. Our unit uses a mandrel formed inner tube. If you look inside some other brands, whos names I won't mention, they have a slight diameter reduction at the bends and very often a wrinkle too. Those create turbulence and flow restriction. The performance difference is subtle, but the fact that we put in the extra effort to mandrel form the inner tube makes it better than products that have not.

Now pray tell, what is aircraft grade stainless? Aircraft are made of aluminum. There are two types of stainless commonly used in exhaust. 409 is a highly ferrous and will not rust, per se, but it does corrode. It is still a very good material to make exhaust from because it lasts longer than aluminized steel and is reasonably easy to form and weld. This is what our muffler is made from. There are sub forms that have to do with heat treatment and forming. Ours is the more ductile type, while most forms used by the leading competitors are very hard and brittle. Corrosion wise, they are all the same.

T304 stainless is reserved for more expensive exhaust components and is desired for its corrosion resistance and because it polishes well. We do not polish the MAX series because first off, it would just turn gold within a few weeks anyway, you don't see the muffler most of the time, and it would increase the cost of the muffler. T304 is also harder, and that increases the chances or failure to metal fatigue in the high stress areas. Like 409, T304 is available in various sub grades with varying hardness and workability. Most other brands are very hard and crack/split easily.

Even though we opted to use the less expensive 409, we did this because its increased flexibility is desired for the durability of the muffler. Most other brands use it too. Looking at the picture, I am not convinced we are even seeing rust. To me it looks like the metal has gotten hot and discolored. You don't see any rust on the parts of the muffler that would be most exposed. the same discoloration occurs next to the TIG welds. Our muffler is designed to outlast the rest of the exhaust system.

Please do your homework before your next biased review.

 

Please be advised that the term "glass packs" would include:

Allied
Edelbrock
Borla
Magnaflow

Hooker

All of which use packing material which although is not fiberglass (as no one has used in 20 years), they each use a sound material absorbing design. Even conventional "glass packs" are proven in flow testing to out perform many of the so-called "Free Flowing Real Mufflers". For reference, WyoTech, Hot Rod Magazine have numerous published articals on this. On the net, please read:

broaderperformance.com/muffler_flow_tests.htm (Independently tested cfm flows of the more popular mufflers, glasspacks and resonators.

http://www.popularhotrodding.com/eng...../index1.html (this is an indepth artical that tests not only the mis-conception of flow demand but also how placement of a muffler (a glass pack in this dyno test) can actually "fool " the system into thinking that it is essentially a straight pipe.

I have listed here a muffler shootout test done by CAR CRAFT:

The Mufflers
MAKE MODEL Part No. COST
SUMMIT Turbo 630125 $14.75
THRUSH Magnum Glasspack 24214 $16.50
THRUSH Boss Turbo 17718 $23.95
HOOKER Competition 21006 $25.95
DYNOMAX Super Turbo 17733 $28.50
DYNOMAX Race Magnum 24215 $31.95
HOOKER Super Competition 21106 $35.95
SUMMIT Fully Welded 630325 $38.69
FLOWTECH Afterburner 50322 $39.95

MUFFLER FLOW TEST

MUFFLER Flow at 28-in H20
DynoMax Race Magnum 528.64 cfm
Thrush Magnum Glasspack 507.40 cfm
Summit Fully Welded 343.38 cfm
Flowtech Afterburner 342.20 cfm
DynoMax Super Turbo 333.94 cfm
Hooker Competition 232.46 cfm
Hooker Super Competition 320.96 cfm
Summit Turbo 331.16 cfm
Thrush Boss Turbo 297.36 cfm

MUFFLER Idle dB WOT dB
DynoMax Super Turbo 89 123
DynoMax Race Magnum 94 133
Flowtech Afterburner 92 124
Hooker Competion 92 122
Hooker Super Competion 90 125
Summit Turbo 89 124
Summit Fully Welded 92 125
Thrush Boss Turbo 90 123
Thrush Magnum Glasspack 92 128

DYNO TEST
All mufflers were dyno-tested on a 355-cube SBC with 10.0:1 compression, Air Flow Research 190 aluminum heads, a CompCams 292 hyd. a Victor Jr. intake, a Holley 750-cfm double-pumper, and 1 5/8 Headman headers.


MUFFLER HP TORQUE 2,500-6,000rpmAverage
Hooker Competition 397.4 381.1 286.8hp/351.9 lb-ft
Thrush Boss Turbo 407.1 384.9 292.1 hp/357.5 lb-ft
DynoMax Race Magnum 409.5 394.3 298.8 hp/366.9 lb-ft
Flowtech Afterburner 409.7 391.2 294.8 hp/361.7 lb-ft
Thrush Glasspack 409.5 389.8 297.7 hp/365.3 lb-ft
Summit Turbo 411.5 386.3 291.5 hp/357.4 lb-ft
DynoMax Super Turbo 412.7 387.2 292.6 hp/358.6 lb-ft
Hooker Super Comp 413.8 387.2 292.8 hp/359.0 lb-ft
Summit Fully Welded 415.4 390.7 295.6 hp/362.4 lb-ft

While there are mufflers that will out flow a glass pack design, it also depends on the design. Does the glasspack use "louvers or perforations" - Louvers reduce the flow by as much as 50% but Allied resonators (that sell for $20-$40) each and available at any muffler shop) installed backwards in independent test flowed 90%+ of a "race spec muffler". Others using other brands consistantly showed similar results.

 

Funny how when multiple 3rd parties test and evaluate a "real Glasspack" it outlows about 50% of the "real" performance mufflers both in cfm & dyno testing.

Check out the websites listed in my previous post- Carcraft, Wyotech, Broader Performance- unless they too falsified the data and Lied, Lied Lied too! I know It's all a consipracy!

BTW, there is such a thing as "Aircraft Grade Aluminum & Stainless"- M&K Metals in Gardena California carry these specific materials, their number is 310-327-9011.

BTW, most aircraft uses a product called "Duraluminum", which is a blend (so to speak) of numerous metals to enhance flexibility and tensile strength (which true aircraft grade spec material tends to be brittle after forming certain bends/shapes)

Welcome to Los Angeles, California and the 21st century!

So, where is your data showing that glass packs are sooooo bad? Oh,

 

Well one of the tests you are showing is lying, one is a dead link, the other shows some of the glasspacks reducing flow by more than half the straight pipe value. The data between the two is conflicting. Curious, who sponsors these tests. I find there is a lot of truth on who is financing the tests. You will get different results based upon where the money comes from.

I also don't understand what you are trying to prove here. I didn't say there was no such thing as aircraft grade aluminum or stainless. If you wish to attempt to discredit our product by stating our product is not made from aircraft grade stainless, name me one product that is. Everything I have ever seen is either 409 or 304. You are not going to find anything made from "aircraft grade" materials outside the aerospace industry.

On the alleged rust, I have seen it thousands of times. When you have stainless steel, and it gets up to standard exhaust temperatures, it changes color. This is part of the nature of stainless. What you are seeing in the pictures is where the neck of the muffler has turned a reddish brown color. You look at any 409 stainless pipe, and you will see the same thing happen. Even 304 will eventually do the same thing.

I just really don't understand why you feel you have to attack and degrade what you would find is an excellent product. You try lowing down and comparing it to glasspacks. I have seen hundreds of glasspacks that come apart and deteriorate. The packing blows out, and the aluminized bodies on most rust out in a few years. Most have aggressive louvers that resist flow through them, and some of the data you supplied does demonstrate this. Glasspacks are loud and raspy. In contrast our product is all stainless with a lifetime warranty, ours uses high temp fiberglass packing, and has a retaining mesh to prevent blowout. It uses a non-louvered perforated tube. Our product for the most part produces a much smoother sound than any glasspack, though the 13" unit here can still pop a bit.

The mandrel formed tube produces very minimal resistance to flow. I would tend to find the broaderperformance link to be more credible than the results you posted because they are truely independent. They do not sell mufflers, they sell other kinds of performance parts, and they are not sponsored tests. Not one glasspack on their list did well in terms of flow. But the Hooker Max Flow did, which is a straight through non-louvered, non-chambered muffler. Our muffler would be in the same ballpark. However ours is less expensive, has a better warranty, and is all stainless.

 

I would also think the picture I post at the beginning would illustrate that the design on the inside lends itself to more free flowing exhaust. I don't have dyno reading for before and after and my intake is still stock. But I am sure it didn't get any worse than the monster stock muffler. As for price I got mine done for about 100 less than a buddy got his flowmaster done and he got dumps vs rewelding the stock pipe back in. As for the case material and how it looks/mounted. I was mostly concern if the welder might have jacked it up during the install. He did expand the necks some and seemed to be welding for awhile. I don't know jack about welding so for all I know it was normal. I do know overheating material can cause problems regardless of quality. If I think about it I will get another picture or two. Not real motivated to getting on the ground while at work.

As stated before I wanted something that sounded different. I am looking at getting headers which will make for more effective difference on the exhaust flow. To me it seems unless the stock manifolds are replaced they become the new bottleneck after muffler replacement. Still need to open my intake and get a tuner. If I keep this muffler or not I am not sure yet. I might get a SIDO and run out the back to the corners. So far I like the muffler I got from Bear River. If my wife had her way I would have to run the exhaust pipe thru the cab to get it loud enough for her. Personally, I like being able to hear it when I goose it and/or if I turn the radio off vs having to blare my radio to mask it. So basically it does what I wanted it to do. Better sound, better flow. Is it the super best top muffler? *shrug* Did I pay the for more product than I got? No. Would my stock exhaust manifolds take advantage of such a flow rate or fully take advantage of the flow rate of the WickedFlowMAX? From what I understand, no. But I don't need all the flow possible since I am still stock on my engine. Besides tuners/intake mods so are most of the engines in the trucks here. Even with headers I am not going to be getting "everything" I can out of the headers unless I do more to the engine. Supercharger and/or nitrous comes to mind.

Still need to clean my interior up of the loose rattling crap I have so I can still get a decent recording on the inside. I think this is something ALL the muffler companies/sellers should have along with exterior exhaust note recordings. How I look at it there are three muffler buyers if not for replacing a defective unit. The guy/gal that just wants better performance but don't wake the neighbors aka near stock noise levels. The guy/gal that doesn't mind waking the neighbors but like to hear the radio aka more aggressive with throttle note. Then the guy/gal that wants to have no distinction between interior and exterior exhaust noise aka resonance/drone in cab running dumps/tips...think my wife falls into this one where I vary between 1 and 2. I actually like one of my neighbors. One of the guys here at work has a 3/4 ton Chevy with glasspacks and BIG tips...very loud and very not what he personally likes. He is not complaining to much since it is a work truck with the company but he says he would not do this to his personal truck or the wife's truck.

The only time I have had this muffle pop/crackle is cold, in park, and trying to make it pop. This also happened with my stock muffler under the same conditions. Hot gas mixing with the cooler air in the muffler when I "blip" the gas pedal.