Finding the right sound
Finding the right sound Well I am on my 3rd exhaust setup on the TA and am still not completely satisfied and would like some opinions. My first setup was a flowmaster muffler (installed before purchase of vehicle) and a cutout before the axle. It sounded great but I got tired of the exhaust sound not coming out the rear, also it made the interior rattle and buzz.
I swapped the stock manifolds for some hooker longtubes and ORY (for performance gain not sound) and kept the catback and cutout. I got tired of longtubes real fast. It sounded okay through the flowmaster but I noticed a loss of power between open/closed cutout. Open cutout was cool for a few days, and that was it. All in all I got tired of the sloppyness and decided to sell the headers because it is difficult and most of the time expensive to get a ls1 to sound good with longtubes.
So I reinstalled the stock manifolds and cats and purchased a Texas-speed rumbler cat-back. Which is essentially a loudmouth with a dynomax bullet instead of a resonator. It sounds good and has a great tone but it has no attitude if you no what I mean. I want the sound to have a little more "bite" to it if you will. It is too clean sounding.
I have been thinking about gutting the cats or buying an ORY for stock manifolds to give me a little more mean sound while keeping the great tone of the cat-back. What are your guys' opinions on this?
I swapped the stock manifolds for some hooker longtubes and ORY (for performance gain not sound) and kept the catback and cutout. I got tired of longtubes real fast. It sounded okay through the flowmaster but I noticed a loss of power between open/closed cutout. Open cutout was cool for a few days, and that was it. All in all I got tired of the sloppyness and decided to sell the headers because it is difficult and most of the time expensive to get a ls1 to sound good with longtubes.
So I reinstalled the stock manifolds and cats and purchased a Texas-speed rumbler cat-back. Which is essentially a loudmouth with a dynomax bullet instead of a resonator. It sounds good and has a great tone but it has no attitude if you no what I mean. I want the sound to have a little more "bite" to it if you will. It is too clean sounding.
I have been thinking about gutting the cats or buying an ORY for stock manifolds to give me a little more mean sound while keeping the great tone of the cat-back. What are your guys' opinions on this?
thats the first time ive heard someone refer to the loudmouth, or rumbler for that matter, as having a "clean" sound. they are the least refined sounding exhaust systems available for our cars. i went through this problem with my last 02 z28. I ended up going with true duals and i think that might be your cure. an x-pipe true dual system on an ls1 is music 
I think it is strange also, the cars I hear on ls1sounds with the "dynomouth" or the rumbler cat-back sound a bit more aggressive than mine does. It is nice to have a refined exhaust note but I want some top end growl! I am afraid it will get too raspy if I gut the cats. I have a buddy with extra stock cats so I guess it wouldnt hurt to give it a try.
honestly...id rather be infront of the other car sounding like *** instead of getting my *** kicked but sounding good...i wouldnt have taken the LTs off...ive ran into this problem myself with my dual dual, WOT is good sounding...but damn...when you let off the throttle..it is hell...im going to hack mine off and run powerpacks after the rear axel..and if that sounds like crap, then ill cut them off and run them as true duals...
I am not a mustang fan thus I will never own one. This car is my practical dream car and I work very hard for it.
I race very little so a little more top end power from headers is not worth the sloppy sound or the money it takes to make them sound good. I got the headers for a great deal and can sell them for more than I paid for them. Lets say the headers were an experiment, I was curious. I know I am being picky with my exhaust but who gives a ****, it's my car and I can do whatever I want with it. To tell the truth, the seat of the pants gain from headers was minimal and the loss of throttle response made driving my car less enjoyable.
Anyway, I am very close to being perfectly satisfied with the sound of my exhaust, it is deep and has great tone, I just want it to be a little more aggressive without getting too sloppy.
INMY01TA: I dont know how serious your comment was but I can assure you that I love my TA. What is so bad about wanting my car to sound the way I want it to? By the way, you have good taste in wheels, I have been trying to get ahold of those firehawk wheels for my car for some time now
I race very little so a little more top end power from headers is not worth the sloppy sound or the money it takes to make them sound good. I got the headers for a great deal and can sell them for more than I paid for them. Lets say the headers were an experiment, I was curious. I know I am being picky with my exhaust but who gives a ****, it's my car and I can do whatever I want with it. To tell the truth, the seat of the pants gain from headers was minimal and the loss of throttle response made driving my car less enjoyable.
Anyway, I am very close to being perfectly satisfied with the sound of my exhaust, it is deep and has great tone, I just want it to be a little more aggressive without getting too sloppy.
INMY01TA: I dont know how serious your comment was but I can assure you that I love my TA. What is so bad about wanting my car to sound the way I want it to? By the way, you have good taste in wheels, I have been trying to get ahold of those firehawk wheels for my car for some time now
^^^ I should have a few clips of my exhuast in the next few days. I run stock mani's with a bassani ory pipe with the tsp rumbler. its got a lot of bite!!! I'll let you know so you can get a general idea.
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Originally Posted by MonkeyBoneSS
^^^ I should have a few clips of my exhuast in the next few days. I run stock mani's with a bassani ory pipe with the tsp rumbler. its got a lot of bite!!! I'll let you know so you can get a general idea.
i wouldnt have taken off the headers either. i think with a good tune you will feel little or no low end loss. sure, headers are mainly for mid to top end gains, but with a good tune these cars run damn good with just boltons.
Originally Posted by bww3588
Loudmouth I and stock manifolds and cats sounds badass. has a nice growl at low RPM's and sounds wicked at WOT.
I run stock manifolds, gutted cats, slp y-pipe and slp catback and it sounds great. Gutting the cats made it more rumbly and louder. It screams during WOT. I get a nice deep tone from idle to normal driving to getting on the gas hard through the gears. When I let off it still sounds deep and it sounds like a diesel truck braking sometime or like my sister says an airplane lol. I love the sound of it. I can't wait to get long tubes on it with the bigger y-pipe. I have a great tune so i have no sound problems.
I would definately look into true duals, they sound the best of any combination of exhaust system you can run, no doubt about it.
The reason you're not happy with the sound is because of the ypipe configuration. No matter what car you have if it has a ypipe configuration it is going to have some rasp and not sound as 'clean' as a true dual system.
Plus, the loudmouth or rumbler exhaust systems are nowhere near 'clean' sounding, as some of the other real catbacks (like Magnaflow). If you were to simply replace your catback with a Magnaflow catback I bet you would be MUCH happier with the sound, and that is what the Magnalfow catback is designed to sound like: good with a ypipe.
The combination of the above two factors is the reason you don't like the sound of your car. Headers just makes whatever problems are there worse because of the amplified sound.
So, you have two options in my mind 1) get a real catback or 2) go true duals.
The reason you're not happy with the sound is because of the ypipe configuration. No matter what car you have if it has a ypipe configuration it is going to have some rasp and not sound as 'clean' as a true dual system.
Plus, the loudmouth or rumbler exhaust systems are nowhere near 'clean' sounding, as some of the other real catbacks (like Magnaflow). If you were to simply replace your catback with a Magnaflow catback I bet you would be MUCH happier with the sound, and that is what the Magnalfow catback is designed to sound like: good with a ypipe.
The combination of the above two factors is the reason you don't like the sound of your car. Headers just makes whatever problems are there worse because of the amplified sound.
So, you have two options in my mind 1) get a real catback or 2) go true duals.
Im sure the LT's combined with the TSP cat-back would have give u the bite that u wanted.....but from what it sounds like u dont want just loud u want deep so im gonna second the true-duals vote by jlashley2001ss.
On The Tree
Joined: Sep 2004
Posts: 183
Likes: 0
From: edgewater, fl
true duals with bullits, the only way to flow. Mine sounds crazy awsome and deep. The reason you said you didnt like the long tubes was cuz you lost some throttle respons. If you had a good tune the long tubes are no diff than stock, and you didnt feel much power gain cuz you needed a tune. The LS based engine, without a tune, with any bolt ons, I would say you are only getting 50% of what you could get out of the bolt on with a tune. Its like the diff between night and day. My mods are in my sig and its a DD, and i have no driving issues what so ever.
Originally Posted by speedyss
true duals with bullits, the only way to flow. Mine sounds crazy awsome and deep. The reason you said you didnt like the long tubes was cuz you lost some throttle respons. If you had a good tune the long tubes are no diff than stock, and you didnt feel much power gain cuz you needed a tune. The LS based engine, without a tune, with any bolt ons, I would say you are only getting 50% of what you could get out of the bolt on with a tune. Its like the diff between night and day. My mods are in my sig and its a DD, and i have no driving issues what so ever.
Originally Posted by BAD WS6
I run stock manifolds, gutted cats, slp y-pipe and slp catback and it sounds great. Gutting the cats made it more rumbly and louder. It screams during WOT. I get a nice deep tone from idle to normal driving to getting on the gas hard through the gears. When I let off it still sounds deep and it sounds like a diesel truck braking sometime or like my sister says an airplane lol. I love the sound of it. I can't wait to get long tubes on it with the bigger y-pipe. I have a great tune so i have no sound problems.
Thanks for the help guys. Its not really that I am unhappy with the sound, its just I think it could sound meaner but with quality. Hard to explain. I still have the longtubes so I will keep them for a little while, they might just end up back on the car. Who knows.
INMY01TA: The only distributor I have seen for firehawk wheels is tbyrnemotorsports and they are expensive as hell. People seem to want to hang on to them also so finding a used set can be hard.
