Hey just wondering what the difference is performance wise between stainless and regular exhaust. I have a straight 4" setup not in stainless, is the other guy gonna have an advantage with stainless or does it just look nice?

 

Stainless will last virtually forever, whereas yours will rust out in no time!!!

 

I would stay away from the magna flow stainless system. I put one on my 04 and it had rust pits all teh way through withen 3 years.

 

There is a way around this, Always let the vehicle come up to full operating temputure before turning it off. if you do only short trips you will still have moisture in the system.

so if you do alot of highway driving, get regular pipe.
If you do alot of short trips, get the stainless.

 

I put on 50-55k a year. Mostly highway driving. Moisture shouldn't be much of an issue. Road salt and rain would be the real corrosion factors. I think that Magnaflow uses a poorer quality of stainless compared to other manufacturers. I now have aluminaized steel in my 07 and it still looks like very good. Odometer just rolled over to 155k

 

Magnaflow uses thinner stainless than several other manufacturers, and the treating process is different. The stainless they use for their tubing is 409. 409 is a highly ferrous stainless that is merely rust resistant. It still oxidizes and corrodes, but does not rust in the same way as regular steel. This is the first I have head of one of their systems rotting out so quickly, but it does not surprise me.

Stainless has a virtually unmeasurable performance advantage. The steel is less conductive than regular steel, so there is slightly less heat loss. This translates to subtle performance gains because the exhaust is loosing less heat through the tubing. It is a similar effect to wrapping the exhaust. But as I mentioned, the effect is extremely subtle.

Some other manufacturers do make tubing from T304, which is not only the most attractive form of stainless used in exhaust, it is also the most corrosion resistant. It is still not 100% corrosion proof, but it would take a very very very long time to corrode through. Certainly not within the chassis lifetime.

Aluminized still has a strong place. It depends on the quality and gauge of the tubing. I live in an area where we have a lot of road salt, and it take 5-7 years for aluminized to rot through. I have only on limited occasions seen 409 rot through, mostly on 20+ year old vehicles. These guys are right, most of the rotting occurs from inside the pipe, not from exposure to road salt but rather from moisture that is trapped inside the system. Longer distance driving helps the system last longer.

 

My Roush System is made from T-304 Stainless!...

 

apparently my truck has aluminized, i thought it was standard steel but it doesn't have any rusty stuff on it, it looks just like the 5" on the jegs website. thanks for your responses fellas!

 

A lot of SS exhausts are 400-series as they have better high temp corrosion characteristics than some of the more common 300-series alloys.

No engine performance differences, just durabilty improvements over plain carbon or aluminized.

-Dave

 

depends on what grade of stainless its made of, the less magnetic the system is the better.