My First Mod

[lowrideraz]

Picked up my new '08 Mercury Silver "F" last Saturday. Have been reading these forums, and got interested in the exhaust. Could not understand why Lexus put this two into one into two heavy exhaust on our cars. I looked at the SRT and the JoeZ exhaust, and decided to have my own fabricated. I liked the general tone of the stock exhaust, so I decided to keep the stock mufflers. I dumped the secondary cats and the factory resonator. I kept the head pipes and the mufflers. My muffler shop used a premade "X" and twin 18" glasspack resonators. He fabricated the rest of the exhaust with heavy gauge 2.5" tubing crush bent using 5" radius bends to maintain inner size. Mandrel bending wasn't an option. The 5" bends look OK in my opinion. I think he did a great :Djob:D

As far as sound, I don't have recording equipment so I cant record it. However, it's quieter than I expected. The idle sounds very much the same, but a little deeper, and both sides now sound different from each other. In the car, The idle is a bit deeper & a wee bit louder, but part throttle sounds about the same. I don't know if there's a difference in power, but I suspect there is, because the flow is so much better. There is absolutely no rasp. Again I think my fabricator did a fantastic job. I am happy.

Oh Cost - $450.00.

Lou

[dcfish]

Nice What is on your mod list ? And more pic's please. B)

[lowrideraz]

I was reviewing my picts last nite, and I left the best one out. Silly me

Lou

[smooth1]

Not bad! to bad about the crush bends though. You would have had much better flow with the mandrel bends. I also would have put a bit more space between the pipes before they seperate to the mufflers. The pic might just make that look closer than what they really are though too. the welds do look pretty clean though. (that's how you can really tell if they did a good job or not.)

[lowrideraz]

Not bad! to bad about the crush bends though. You would have had much better flow with the mandrel bends. I also would have put a bit more space between the pipes before they seperate to the mufflers. The pic might just make that look closer than what they really are though too. the welds do look pretty clean though. (that's how you can really tell if they did a good job or not.)

Not really, the 5" radius bends keeps things flowing pretty good in the pipe. A smaller radius would have caused restriction. as far as space, there isn't much, and there are two tack welds on the bottom and top of the resonators to keep them apart. If you look at the two aftermarket systems available for the F, you'll see that they run pretty close together also. Thanks for the comments.

Lou

[justflyin83]

While it is better than a normal crush bend which restricts airflow it's still not better than a good mandrel bend, it a good happy medium. ;)

The reason for this is the crush bend even with a 5" radius bend will disrupt airflow limiting a seamless exit. Either way a great improvement over the stock exhaust for a good price. Exhuasts and intakes are one of the most rediculously marked up aftermarket performance pieces. It's almost always better to have someone fabricate it. A pipe is a pipe, no matter who makes it.