thinking about getting a single in dual out flowmaster 10 muffler or maybe glasspack(but not sure on length) with a Y pipe after it, but super 10 sounds really nice in vids I've watched

My 95 5.2 currently has a single in, dual out flowmaster 40 (I'm guessing from the light gray look and sound comparison in vids) dumped a bit before the axle and in these hot humid times I usually just have the AC on but if I have the window down the exhaust really stinks, I'm assuming on this old thing being a 95 with 224k miles the cat was hollowed out long ago by a previous owner, so I definitely plan on getting 2 pipes straight out the back...

is there a general "best" sounding muffler people can recommend on here? I'm wanting to keep it dual exhaust most likely. I would just totally straight pipe it but that might be TOO loud plus I heard you end up losing alot of low end torque with no muffler at all, but idk for sure

certainly not the end of the world, but I don't like smelling and breathing that crap in, and I feel bad for the poor kids in the fast food drive-thru's that end up getting choked by it when giving my money to them or them handing me the food with me sitting there

 

Are you interested in performance, or just sound?

Here's why I ask:
Flowmasters are all about sound -not performance. (now before someone says "huh-uh, cause my flowmasters gave me xx more horsepower on the dyno". . . pretty much any aftermarket muffler is going to give you better power than the OE muffler, but that doesn't mean it's a good muffler).
The Flowmaster 40 is a plenum (large empty chamber) design with three large baffles.
The Flowmaster 10 is also a plenum design but with two small chevron-shaped baffles offering less resistance to flow than the 40 series. It even says "race applications" (probably because it's really loud), but that's just slick marketing.

But professional racers don't use mufflers and people who have to use mufflers don't use baffle-chamber mufflers if they're interested in performance. That's 1960s technology. The sound waves bounce around off the baffles and chamber walls and cancel a lot of the higher pitched sound waves leaving you with a nice sounding throaty rumble. But sound signature has nothing to do with horsepower. In this type of muffler, the exhaust gas hits the open chamber of the muffler and immediately expands which slows its velocity. The baffles also cause a great deal of turbulence which greatly slows velocity. This causes resistance to flow. Resistance causes the engine to work harder which means less power.

If you're interested in performance, the straight through muffler is the only real option. This muffler style is essentially a straight section of exhaust tube perforated with thousands of tiny holes, wrapped in sound dampening insulation, and sealed inside a muffler housing. The exhaust gas pretty much flows straight through as though it were just a straight section of pipe. Basically no additional resistance to flow. The sound bounces through the holes and makes the exhaust quieter. They sound different than the baffle chamber style mufflers. Some people think they sound even better, some don't. But they definitely perform better.

Glasspacks and Magnaflow mufflers are of this type of construction (glasspacks have way less insulation and are WAY louder). For about the same money, I think Borla makes a better muffler than Magnaflow and people love the way they sound. If money is no object, look at Corsa.

How loud will each of these be on a truck with a catless y-pipe? I don't know, but I'll find out next week when I put my borla 40665 on to complement my Jeg's offroad Y-pipe. Good luck with your decision!

 

I was mostly after sound, I didn't know the muffler could play into performance but that's nice if it can too

reading a little more I found out about the cheap cherry bomb extreme muffler, seems like a copy of the flowmaster 10

5.2 single exhaust glasspack
5.2 glasspack with Y pipe for dual exhaust
5.2 single in dual out flowmaster super 10
5.9 cherry bomb extreme, sounds louder than the super 10 does, I'm wary of the cab drone with this thing lol.
this whole thing has me down the rabbit hole of wanting to do more mods like headers lol

it was a bit hard finding cherry bomb extreme vids for the 5.2 that aren't dumped or short out the side, I found a 5.9 single in single out cherry bomb extreme vid and the guy didn't have any pipe at all after the muffler lol.
Another vid had loud rock music playing, it was from years ago some kids made about the cherry bomb extreme, warning, turn the volume down r.i.p. ears LOL they too don't have any pipe at all after the muffler but theirs was a dual out cherry bomb extreme


my main complaint being the fumes and stinking exhaust if I'm sitting there with the window down since my current is dumped at the ground, maybe having no pipe at all after the muffler so the exhaust is shooting out toward the rear of the truck and not just bouncing off the ground would greatly help...

I appreciate the input, it will likely be a little bit before I do the exhaust, I'm going to shop around for the cheapest place that will weld this together, although trying out mufflers clamped on for a test drive and idle to see if I like it would be very appreciated if a shop would do that for me...

 

If you still have stock manifolds, and such, on your truck, the muffler won't affect performance at all.

 

From personal experience:
When I had my 97 1500, it had the 5.2 and I had a cherrybomb glass pack and it sounded aggressive for not having a lot of power. I enjoyed the sound at idle, cruising, light and aggressive throttle. I had my exhaust necked down to 2" just before the muffler then back up to 2.5" right after. That was at stock exit point.

My previous truck was a 2001 ram 1500 with the 5.2. I had the Pypes violator 2.5" single in/single out stock exit. At idle it was tame yet had a nice rumble but really opened up under acceleration. It did drone at cruising and I didn't care for that.

My current truck is a 99 1500 with 5.9. I have a cherrybomb glasspack on it and it's ok at best. Side by side with my old 97 (which my buddy still owns) I prefer the sound of the 5.2. My 99 does sound better since gutting the cat but still not as nice as the 97. Gutting the cat made it a little louder but not much and sound quality didn't change imo.

All 3 trucks had stock manifolds and exhaust routing. I actually preferred the 5.2 in sound and off the line punch. The trucks with the 5.2 were also louder than what mine is now with the 5.9.

I will be redoing my entire exhaust soon as it's rotting away. I'll be installing my Gibson shorty headers, Jegs off-road Y pipe, and the flowmaster super 10 muffler single in dual out muffler.

 

I searched around some online and some say they never had any fumes issue with a dumped exhaust, is this normal? I'm guessing it's just due to the older vehicle having its cat hollowed out by an old owner, I don't have any check engine lights or misfire or anything, truck idles very smooth so I don't think it's running overly rich, I actually get pretty good mpg considering it's mostly in-town driving I do.

I'm leaning towards the flowmaster 10 too with dual pipes coming straight out the back, the cherry bomb extreme sounds good and loud, but maybe TOO loud for inside the cab. This vid sounds so sexy to me although it's a 2002 ram 5.9 lol (although from reading around the 2002 1500 ram was more like a 2001.5)

 

Between the super 10 and super 40 is really just a noise preference. My cat is hollowed out and if I walk behind my truck I can definitely smell it. I wouldn't want it dumped behind the cab.

 

I, personally, don't care for the Flowmaster sound especially the 40 series. The drone on a long road trip will drive you nuts. Now that being said, if it's sound you want then you could look into Dynomax mufflers. Someone suggested it to me a while back and I've been loving the sound of them on other Rams. They could be too raspy for some people though.

Edit:

 

oh wow, I had totally forgot about Dynomax actually, I watched vids before on how they sound on the 88-98 chevy trucks and sound quite good, there's several ones, a dynomax even made a little v6 chevy truck sound like a diesel LOL. There's the race bullet, ultraflow, turbo...probably more I'm missing. I never hear many talk about dynomax even though they sound pretty good to me too. I'll post the v6 dynomax sounding like a diesel for the laughs :P

 

Carven TR