i was wondering on my 87 iroc 350 i wanna do headers and i wanna make it really loud would i get the most power if i straight piped it to like flowmasters or something or does have a high flow cat make more power i always thought straight pipes were the best for performance but i keep seeing everyone on here with high flow cats i was just wondering if it wouldnt run right or whatever thanks for any help

 

Most people have the high flow cats becuase they need them for emmisions testing. I have none but Florida also has no inspections or emmision testing. If you have mufflers then the car is not straight piped. Flowmaster is not the best if your looking for power though if you have a stock 350 I doubt you would notice the difference between Flowmaster or a better muffler. Louder doesnt mean more power either. I can tell you that loud is cool for a few weeks then it gets annoying. I like it where I can hear the exhaust, but I can also carry on a normal cell phone conversation without talking loud.

 

i live in pa and i do have emmisions testing but i dont care about that i can always get stickers i just wanted to know if having high flow cats was better power then not having cats and i want it really loud i had plenty of mustangs that were loud and i loved it lol some people are different i guess but i just wanted to know what would be the best choice and just wanted to know would i lose power if i took the cats out rather then spend a lot of money on high flow ones

 

Loud and sounding good are 2 different things.

 

i have longtube headers (generic) no cats straight back to dual spintech pro shoot out mufflers with dumps about afoot and a half before the rear tires on my iroc and it sounds pretty bad *** its loud but not stupid and abnoxious or however its spelled... i have a 355 mild cam stock heads and converted over to carb i really like it... my other z/28 with a tpi 305 i have high flow cats and flowmaster to be honest it sounds ok but it really didnt help permormance much if at all it acually feels like its breathing way to easy like theres not enough backpressure or something... as far as loud exhaust goes ill go as loud as i can as long as its not hurting my car.. i get way into it when im driving i drove around an entire summer with no radio and it really didnt bother me one bit cause i love the sound.. everyone that rode with me hated it but i loved it even if im out cruising alone i rarely turn the radio up my radio is there for the passenger not me.. my car sound a lot like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGMg5oTxqLM

 

Mine was straightpiped off of longtubes with the old 327 when i bought it. Sounded more like a beat up truck than anything "fast". It was very high pitched.



The idea of mufflers is tone control, get rid of the high frequencies and keep/manipulate the lows. One way to get a distinctive sound is to get rid of the cat and move the muffler up closer to the engine then run just pipes after that. Do not use a flowmaster for this, however Aerochambers, Magnaflows or any other muffler will work well though.

Having that much tailpipe after the muffler really gives a nice rumble. I did that on my old 305 TBI '91 RS and it made a huge difference.