I've decided I'm going to put my exhaust system on myself. I've been debating back in forth beteween doing a single or dual exhaust. What I wanted to find out was who has installed a dual exhaust at home and how difficult was it? did u use a kit or piece the tail pipe together yourself? I was thinking about using the pipe on there and then building my own 2nd tail pipe. Single inlet dual out. My next question is where is the inlet located on the muffler? center? offset? left side right side? on a dingle exiting exhaust where is the outlet also? What size is the stock pipe on the dakota? thanks guys.

 

For your truck past the cat it should be 2-1/2" OD. You mean making a dual exhaust post cat? Or you talking dual right from the manifold back? Due to space confinements underneath if you're going true dual the driver side pipe will be 2-3 feet longer than the passenger side because of having to route around the gas tank.

If you just want the sound, buy a single-in dual-out muffler, and just route the second pipe over the axle and across to the drivers side to where you want it to exit.

 

I'm trying to decide if I want to run single in dual out or just a single in single out.

 

I attempted to install a (Cat-back system) Magnaflow 15735 dual Ex kit (single-in/dual-out muffler with 2.5 pipes) on my 98 Dakota Club Cab and I ran into to too many problems to the point where I had to send it back.

Here's a shot of it:


Here are the problems that I ran into:

The pipe between the the Cat and muffler didn't have a CO2 hole nor boss. I'm sure some members here have a buddy that can turn a blind eye and push-through inspections & emissions but I do not.

The other two problems were with the driver's-side tail pipe that were to run straight from under the rear bumper rather than on the side behind the rear wheel. I have a hitch on the back of my truck and it interfered with where the end of the tail pipe sat. I did take off the hitch but then I discover that the mandrel bend that went over the rear axle wasn't bent far enough and I don't have a mandrel bender.

I'm not trying to dissuade you as these are the opinions I got for my particular exhaust. My uncle (he's a mechanic) shook his head when I brought the dual ex to his shop. In less colorful language, he and his mechanic buddies said that it was a waste of time. Any possible gain in MPG or gain in HP (marginal at-best) compared to the cost of the exhaust will never pay off.

It makes some sense to me since it was a single-in/dual-out system but I was pretty psyched to get the 15735 system installed.
I feel that I made a great choice on the single exhaust I wound up installing and it saved me $300.

Something to consider. I hope this helps.

P.S.
I don't have my Haynes repair manual in front of me but I'm all but certain that the stock pipes are 2.5".

 

could u tell me since no one else will, on the dakotas where is the inlet on the muffler center or offset left or offset right, where is the outlet center offset left or offset right? thanks. I dont have a muffler on there at all right now as the PO took it off so I'm trying to find out what I need when I buy my muffler and make my set up work.

 

If u are doing the whole exahust system it won't much matter where the factory in and outs were.....but if I had to guess I'd say the inlet was offset to the drivers and out was opposite