what about the back-pressure - would I see a noticeable difference when driving? Also, what about the heat - has anyone ever had anything melted under there from doing this?

 

In a nut shell you don't need back pressure. I can't imagine the heat hurting anything. Exhaust pipe shouldn't get any hotter than the muffler did. Here's a pretty good article I found explaining back pressure.

http://my.prostreetonline.com/forums...php?t-1639.htm

 

You won't see much, if any, performance increase either. On these trucks, it's the Y-pipe that is the big restriction. Until that is addressed, nothing else is going to do much.

 

the ONLY difference you will notice is that it will sound stupid loud for 2 weeks, and will crack, pop, and fart every time you let off the skinny pedal. no need to worry bout the motor, the stock manifolds + y pipe do a good enough job providing too much back pressure as it is.

 

I ran my 5.9 wthout a muffler for a couple weeks. It will be loud but I never even got any second looks from cops when I drove by. If you see a cop give him a salute or wave. Youll be fine man. I simply sawzall'ed mine off slide the new muffler (flowmaster 44) on and then clamped it.

 

when you sawzalled it, did you cut it against the muffler or did you just cut the actual pipe at the end of the overlap where the muffler overlaps the pipe.

 

I cut about halfway between the muffler end and the hanger so that I can remount the muffler if I wanted too.

 

Ive been running my truck without a muffler for 6 years in 3 different states and have never had any complaints from neighbors or cops...You just CANNOT floor it by cops and i agree with everyone else on the back pressure and lack thereof with performance gains. I also live in SC where the cops are also felloew hillbillies!