I'm thinking about a cherry bomb extreme with side exit exhaust before the tire like this vid, sounds pretty decent and very similar or the same as the flowmaster 10 does while being half the price of the flowmaster 10.

flowmaster 10
cherry bomb extreme pt.1
cherry bomb extreme pt.2
Another con I forgot to mention with the current single in dual out flowmaster 40 dumped is at idle it actually rattles my back window and the plastic near my head near the seatbelt, from reading and some comments as long as you either get it out the side or out the back it stops alot of the drone and noise inside the cab. Out the side before the tire might even be cheaper and give it a little meaner sound versus past the tire or out the back. Either way it'll get the fumes pushing AWAY instead of bouncing off the ground back at me and sitting there under the cab/bed lol. My current might even be a flowmaster 40 copy like a thrush welded muffler, it's light gray in color and I see no branding under it, I'd need a flashlight and mirror to view the top of it

 

2nd half of this video is Cherry Bomb extreme with longtubes, no cat, side exit. All 3". More accurate to what it sounds like driving vs sitting in neutral

 

Did you post a vid too? I don't see one in the post, maybe it messed up when posting

I hear the single best thing we can do for these trucks is getting an offroad y pipe since the factory one is very restrictive, even though my county doesn't emissions test some places I hear are finicky and still check to see if the cat is still there, I may in the future get headers and y pipe, I've read supposedly soon Tx is supposed to do away with safety inspections altogether and will only have to go to the local office here once a year to get the registration and that's it, before I order the cherry bomb extreme I'll try to find some vids on it driving more, 5.2 2nd gen vids seem to be a little obscure and low quality from years ago in the earlier days of youtube for the stuff I search for, but I am general able to eventually find something

edit: 7-24 : I ordered the cherry bomb extreme single in 3in to dual 2.5 out muffler, from reading and listening it seems to be a super 10 at about half the price, mine was only 35 bucks, then I'll get this local shop to weld it on and weld on two short pipes coming out the passenger side before the tire, at a slight angle most likely pointed towards the rear. I watched a vid where a guy put a single in single out cherry bomb extreme with side exit on his 3rd gen 4.7 ram and with the windows up there was little to no drone, you could even hear the guy whispering, same in my case in my 95 with my current one, with the windows up idling or driving I can't really hear drone, certainly nothing that would get on my nerves. If it's too loud with the short exit I can always get straight pipes from the muffler out the back.

I'm thinking mine currently has to be some el cheapo chinese ripoff of the flowmaster 40 or even ripoff magnaflow, it sounds ok at idle but when driving or giving it gas it sounds like a quiet 4 cylinder car if I had to describe it, lol, just wind coming out. My dad's 98 ram with stock exhaust sounds soooo much better, I think I'll be quite pleased with this cherry bomb extreme, and if I'm not, I can always sell it and get something else, with this truck being so reliable I haven't had to put anything into repairs immediately like I did in the past with some junky cars.

 

Woops didnt post it. Here ya go! Starts at about 2:27. Green was my truck (yes the smoke was oily, PCV had gotten plugged and it was no bueno)

 

So what did you end up going with? I'm suddenly in need of replacing mine and my Cat. I discovered that my rattle wasn't the heat shield and also noticed a slight gain in power when I yanked the rear O2 sensor. Most I can figure is that my stock muffler had enough and/or got clogged by my cat breaking down. As soon as I pulled that rear O2 sensor my idle smoothed out and she runs great.

 

I received the cherry bomb extreme 3" in dual 2.5" out earlier and called the local shop here to ask how much it would be to weld it on and get two short pipes out the side in front of the tire, will probably get it done this week if I don't have much else going on, from the vids and even pics it seems to be a flowmaster 10 at about half the price, mine was like 35 bucks on amazon. Figured I'd treat myself to it, after the bad ones I've been through, it feels weird not having a vehicle constantly needing parts

I'll post back what rinky dink offbrand muffler is on mine currently when they cut it off at the shop, I'm thinking a ripoff magnaflow, my dad's huge long water heater stock muffler on his 98 ram sounds so much better than mine.

I like for trucks to have a mean tone to them, I'd recommend the cherry bomb extreme from the nice sounding vids I've seen. I'd honestly just straight pipe it but from vids the cab drone can be kinda bad lol. And I heard before with no muffler at all that you can actually lose alot of low end torque and even mpg, but I'm not personally sure.

Many seem to like having glasspacks too, although brand seems to matter for them too, lots of noname offbrand ones don't seem to sound as good as a true cherry bomb or thrush one from reading around.

For example, honestly, this single exhaust glasspack sounds really nice to me too, I wouldn't mind it either

5.9 1996 2500 ram with single exhaust glasspack out the back, with messed up parking brake apparently lol

 

Ah yes, Cherry Bomb. I actually used to have one of those on my old 92 Cherokee. They're not really that off brand believe it or not. They were popular for muscle cars back in the day. Well unfortunately they don't sell a 3" in 2.5" single out Dynomax Super Turbo anymore.

Back to the drawing board.

 

Well here's my 2 cents. I had a gorgeous custom setup with magnaflow cat, deltaflow 50, and dual 4" SS tips angled behind the tires. Looked great and sounded even better! No drone. Great sound when gassing it but super quiet on hwy. Highly recommend the 50 series.

Then one pipe rusted off after 10 years so I hacked the whole thing off and grabbed a thrush glasspack from O'Reilly's. Dumped it before the axle with another 18" or so after the muffler. Actually sounds pretty darn good for like $50. Quieter than the 50 for sure. No drone at all. Better power. Clean look. I just used clamps and did it myself. And I get zero smell even close to the cab. If I walk around back, maybe. If you're getting exhaust in the cab you must have a leak somewhere upstream. I go through drive thru all the time too.

There isn't much different between obd1 and obd2 trucks. Mines actually detuned with deathflash which you never got. So if you've got bad smell, might look at engine performance rather than exhaust.

 

Edit: This baby:

Lol Yup, I just logged in this morning to say that I looked at a few Thrush Turbo Muffler videos and they sound amazing. For 33 bucks in a pinch that's what I'll be getting this weekend. Probably tomorrow.

 

That thrush turbo in the vid sounds pretty good, I was considering some thrush and dynomax before I found the cherry bomb extreme at a good price

Got it put on yesterday and it sounds good, not even bad driving through town with the window down when I tested, and just like that vid on the guys newer 4.7 3rd gen ram, I don't have any annoying drone with the windows up at all, the cab cancels the noise out very well, if anything it's way more quiet sounding than my old muffler because they're straight pipes out the back and don't rattle my back window like the old dumped muffler did.

I didn't even look at the model number since I hated my old one but when they hacked it off, it was actually a silver cherry bomb muffler, maybe one of their quiet flow ones, thing sounded lame to me honestly.

Maybe it was a Vortex judging from this model chart pic I found? Idk lol. https://www.autoaccessoriesgarage.co.../3155_3_lg.jpg

I notice better power too honestly since the extreme is a much more free flowing exhaust I'm guessing than whatever happened to be on before, not a night and day difference, but a nice pep.