i would like to make my 03 blazer sound more bad *** and obviously removing the muffler would make it a lot louder and ballser my girlfriends wrangler has no muffler and i love how it sounds but i have heard that without the back pressure of the muffler the truck looses a lot of performance resulting in less power and less mpgs is that true?
is there any downside to removing the muffler other than the obvious of making it way louder than most people wanna hear ? i have also heard that it can destroy your headers

 

i wouldnt recommend that even though i would say about 80-90% of your back pressure comes from the cat. why not put a different muffler on?

 

I agree with Twip, straight pipes is quite loud and where I live (Cali) it's not allowed. Flowmaster 40's sound good with the 4.3 and are really loud with deep tones. Personally I have a Magnaflow dumped and that is really loud, It's whatever you want to do though

 

sigh..


OK. if you remove it. You WILL notice a big loss of low end power. It'll feel like a slug. And it'll sound raspy in higher rpms. Dont waste your time. you'll just spend money putting a muffler back on. and your headache from the drone will appreciate it.

 

yeah thats what i figured i just thought maybe i could save like 90 and just take it off
is there a muffler you would recommend more than another one
i found a flow master but it said it only fits an 01 blazer and not my 03 i thought they were the same

 

if you are going to weld it (as it should be done,clamps are a pain) then you shouldnt worry about fitment as long as size of pipe is close enough and the locations of the pipe lines up..Honestly for what you are looking for. Go single in single out,flowmaster 40 with a 2ft dump after the muffler. Thats how i have mine and its not annoying,has a good rumble and barely any drone. I didnt loose a bit of power either.


if you are on a tight budget,pickup that cherry turbo from autozone. its like 25 bucks. Looks like a regular muffler,(dont get the glasspack). They sound pretty good. Just put a few track welds around the seams where the inlet/outlets come out of the muffler. I had one and the seams came loose and rattled.

 

When it comes to backpressure on S&T body, keep in mind that when you test for a restriction in the exhaust system, (loss of power etc) the maximum allowable is 1psi. Needless to say, any restriction causes a loss of power. The less restriction the better.

 

I bought my blazer with no muffler on it. Other than that, it's still a full exhaust. Hardly loud too.

 

the GM Powertrain Application Manual for the 4.3 shows peak HP in the truck at 4600 RPM to be 198 and 220 hp in the marine. the difference? truck test has 8.5" of mercury and the marine test uses 0" of exhaust restriction (and slightly different intakes/fueling)

I wouldn't worry about backpressure

 

my muffler is clamped on after the cat if i wanted to just see how it is without the muffler could i un-clamp it and reuse the clamp if i dont like it?