Edit: I made it a whopping 6 days before she noticed. When we were loading the truck for our 4th of July trip, she remote started it to get the AC going...of course, a cold start which is louder. As we were putting luggage in the back she said, "The truck sounds different..."

Busted. 🤣

She hasn't asked me to put the stock muffler back on yet though, so I'm still calling it a win!
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I've wanted to add an exhaust system to this truck ever since we bought it, but the wife was against making it louder in any way since this is her daily driver. So, I did the right thing and modded the exhaust anyway!

Unless you're going to be getting into forced induction and making big power numbers, there's very little reason to spend $500-$1500 on an aftermarket exhaust system unless you really enjoy a particular sound. The stock piping flows more than well enough to not be a restriction, but the annoying flapper valve and ridiculously big OEM muffler make these trucks sound pretty awful from the factory, and the flapper valve actually can be a bit of a restriction by itself. To make the truck actually sound like a truck, I went ahead and cut out the stock muffler and flapper valve and put a Magnaflow 12259 muffler in its place (5x8" oval, 18" body), along with adding Go Rhino 4" exhaust tip just to improve the looks a bit. To keep the cab noise and drone to the absolute minimum, I left the stock resonator in place. It sounds night and day better - now I just need to see how long it will take Mrs. Mechanic to notice. 😎

The real reason I did this now is because I'm tuning the truck this coming week, and I wanted to make sure that any potential restriction from the OEM exhaust was removed in order to maximize the gains from the tune. I will post more on the tuning process very soon, so keep an eye out for the video(s) on that coming up!

Thanks for watching!


Magnaflow 12259 muffler:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000XQM1JE/...

Evil Energy stainless reducers:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XZGFBH4/...

Evil Energy stainless exhaust clamps:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YDG5WG4/...

Go Rhino exhaust tip:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HQZA7C8/...