Ok been doing some reading. Staight pipes with cats make you lose power on a 5.3 right? Has to do with back pressure? I dont have much money now so Maybe I could just put a muffler in place of my stock one and keep the original piping till I can afford nice tips. Should I go magnaflow, use a bullet type or what? I live in west Texas so loud is good but I want to add power too.

Thanks!!

 

Stock pipes are not all that bad so you can really pick whatever kind of aftermarket muffler you like the sound of as the power differences between them are minimal. Any of the the aftermarket mufflers should flow better than the stock one and sound better.

Do a search this has been discused at length many many times.

 

dynomax round muffler... its about 60-70bucks I think.. I dont like the bullet ones cause they are just bascially cherry bombs which make the truck raspy.

I cut my stock muffler off and put that muffler on.. cut some of the stock pipe(just enough to reach behind the rear axle), then put a turn down on it

I know when I run my cutout open my truck suks downlow.. no BP is bad for heavy trucks

I dont have cats either but the 3k stall usually makes up for low end loss

 

I don't beleive a muffler alone will make any noticeable difference. Save your money for a tune and you will much happier. For a few hundred $$ you can get a tune. Then when you add mods, get another for free. Some mail order tuners will do free tunes as you add mods.

If you want noise, go with a muffler. If you want to add power, a tune is a great bang for the buck. It all depends on what you want.

 

The only way a muffler is going to hurt you is if it flows less than your cats or manifolds or some other part of your exhaust system.

The muffler you have may be fine - you might want to put the money elsewhere if you're looking for some more get up and go.

Got a cold air intake?