'00 F350 SuperDuty

4" Straight-Pipe Exhaust System

Go look at your stock muffler. It's horrible. Turbocharged engines don't like backpressure, so that's no excuse. In addition to freeing up some horsepower, one of the most important things a free-flowing exhaust system can do for your truck is lower the EGTs, providing safer power (see WD Chip article for more info on that). I chose to go with a complete 4" system from the turbo to the tip. Stan's Headers (who just happens to be local to me, but they ship anywhere) makes an awesome complete system for around $500. I decided to skip the muffler since I like the sound of a straight piper (Stan HATES it, or maybe he's biased by the price of his $150 muffler...). Also skipped the polished tip for now, this is actual exhaust pipe that will eat most ricer's tips. See the difference below.

I spent about 2 hours trying to get the old exhaust out in whole pieces. After determining that the tranny crossmember would have to be dropped in order to get the downpipe out whole, I went and got the torch and cut it up. Decided I'd never go thru the trouble of putting it back on for any reason, and it's not worth selling. So 20 minutes later and it was all out. The last part to come off and the first part to go on was the downpipe at the turbo since that's the tightest-fitting part of the system. Just loosen that big clamp way up enough so it will come off the flange it's on and pull the pipe loose (it will be a little stuck more likely). No picture of a stock pipe, but look at the new one.

The downpipe goes up from under the truck. It's pretty tight near one of the cab flanges, I'd recommend bending it out of the way with a hammer before you put the new pipe up. This piece will take a little fitting but it works great. It helps to hang the next section of straight pipe from the bottom to get it all right.

The rest of the system goes up relatively easy. I had to fiddle with the hangers a bit and weld them on myself, but I think this was because they didn't give them all to me (I didn't buy it as a "kit"). Striaght all the way to the axle, then it's a two-piecer that goes up and over. Again, takes a bit of fitting to get maximum axle clearance while still keeping clear of everything else. Fit all the pipes together and rig up a rear hanger, the you can adjust the pieces to fit just right. I'll put up a sound file when I get to it. Dropped my EGTs by about 100 degrees, makes a difference you can feel when driving, and sounds way cool :). Everyone says "here comes the Kenworth!" when i round the corner down the block, tho I keep correcting them "It's an International!!"...

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