I have a 98 ram 1500 with a 5.2. I love this truck!!! I have had it for 5 years. But just a few weeks ago the stock muffle blew out and sounded pretty good!!! But I have a state inspection here in VA so I had to replace it. I installed a simple thursh glasspack 2.5 in 2.5 out. it sounds great!! But I found it to be more powerful than before. Now I don't mean it was some super mod!! it just runs so much better!! is this normal? is the stock muffler that bad?

 

Unless you have a sports car, stock mufflers are a restriction. And it may have been stopped up some if the baffles came loose inside of it.

 

The OEM muffler on these trucks are not restricting. The capacity of the valves are the greatest restriction on the Magnum engines. That is on an undamaged muffler. If yours blew out, there was obviously something wrong and may have created significant restriction.

 

Yeah, the most restrictive part of the exhaust on these trucks is the y-pipe. You likely had it gunked up and falling apart.

I noticed a small performance increase when I replaced mine aswell.

 

does any one make a larger Y pipe? or a true duel exhaust?

 

A muffler shop could make you one for pretty cheap probably

 

I wonder which I should do. I can get mandrel bent 3 inch pipe and mig weld a Y pipe together or I could get a murrler shop to bent me a one out of 2 1/2 pipe.

 

Factory pipes are 2.25 going into 2.5, but the 2.25's are really bad. I think and mandrel bent 2.25 would be better than factory.

 

do you mean the 2.5 mandrel? if I used the 2.25 mandrel pipe wouldn't it be the same as putting the stock pipe back on?

 

Not really because the stock pipe isn't mandrel bent. lol
The stock pipe is, uh, crush-bent. So even with 2.25, it's still better than stock.

But look at the off road y-pipes and see what they run, I forgot.