Anatomy of the stock exhaust

So In my quest to replace the stock exhaust with Gibson, as you know, I was completely disappointed and am having it removed.

So I started to dig and try to learn why it drones and why the factory one doesn't.

I was able to get some information from a Ford performance engineer who worked on the exhaust.

They had a lot of effort placed into trying to get free flowing dual exhausts. Their initial attempts sounded as terrible as the Gibson. They ended up having to use a large muffler, a resonator, harmonic absorbers, and they had to use heavier gauge steel that wouldn't reverberate.

In a nutshell... it took Spectroscopes and a team of engineers to come up with an acceptable sounding exhaust under all driving conditions that still would admirably perform.

The aftermarket companies are having tremendous difficulty replicating the science that went into the stock setup.

I'm not sure ANY are going to pan out the way we would like. The FOMOCO branded Borla I think may be the only candidate.

Bummer...

Can you share your sources for this, pretty interesting


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Guy did you get your money back? Did the resonator tips not work?

This is an example of the sorts of engineering that the OEMs are capable of; keep this in mind when you wonder, "why doesn't Ford just _______________?"

While it seems like a no-brainer to take an existing motor and drop it into an existing platform (say, the 5.2L Voodoo V8 from the GT350 into the Raptor), there is so much engineering, testing, documentation, etc... that goes into something like that. One-off swaps by even high end aftermarket shops are shadetree bush-league ******** by comparison... I say that not to denigrate in any way the effort that goes into that sort of thing, but to try to put some context around just how many man-hours and other resources are involved when an OEM does it.

TMW! said:

Can you share your sources for this, pretty interesting


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Sure it's not a secret.

I just picked the brains of ford performance and the chap was very up front and contacted an engineer for me when my questions became complex.

I was trying to learn if I could possibly "fix" the Gibson. What I learned is that it's far more complicated than just swapping in this part or that part.


Resonated tips smoothed out the sound but not the drone. In fact the resonated tips actually made it have a smooth sedan sound... think Honda Accord V6. Lol. With a highway drone. So it was the worst of both worlds at that point!


No idea if I can get a refund yet. That's next once I remove them.

The stock exhausts are straight through the muffler and resonator. They're pretty high flow high tech actually.

Since turning off the fake engine noise, I actually don't mind the factory exhaust. This engine platform just isn't gonna sound sexy, no matter what you do, IMHO. I figure I'll modify the exhaust by drilling a few holes in the mufflers. I'll start with 2 each and keep drilling more till I like it.

Muffler weep holes.

Ironhorse07 said:

Muffler weep holes.

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Sasquatch is going to be sooooo happy.

But, who IS squatch?

EricM said:

But, who IS squatch?

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Some say that he invented the weep hole...
...and that his mother was Harambe's secret mistress...

...all we know is...HE'S CALLED THE SQUATCH!