PERSONALY i have experimented With almost all...excluding gibson heard it on my buddies car and didn't like it at all...made it sound ricey reving it up! but i've gone with Flowmaster 50 series, flowmaster 40 series, and magnaflow and out of all of themi would recommend flowmaster 40 series all the way! It is louder than any of the others...but it also sounds more throatly and like a true V8...the rest make them sound deep but not the True V8 sound....but for you 3.7L V6 dakota...I would recommend the 50 series...cause it brings out the sound on the V6's, the 40 series just is a little bit much...makes it sound like its all bark with no bite...but the 50 series makes it seem like it has all the bite with all that bark...trust me you will love the 50 series on that V6...I would have it exit in front of the passenger rear tire like i did! it sounds even better and if i were you i would have the resignators taken off! there should be two of them! have them cut off...trust me it makes it sound even better! thats what i did and mine sounds like a monster!

 

thanks for all the info, the resignators dont do anything besides restrict noise correct? they wont make my truck fail emmissions? im just askin because i dont know and there isnt and really good shops in my area. they are sub par and i get different stories form them

 

You are correct, the resonators are simply there to reduce the noise from the exhaust. Removing them will not make you fail your emissions test..

 

Well, thoughts on this are varied and you will get many different reposnses.
I have asked around on several boards, done some reading and asked at some the local shops; it basically boils down to a couple of things:

Getting a cat-back from a manufacturer is more expensive, but you can usually hook it up yourself. However, you are leaving the restictice OEM Y pipe in place so you are not really gonna get as much out.

If you are going with a single pipe, you generally don't want to go larger than 3", again you should probably change out the y-pipe.

If you are are going with duals, or 'true' duals, you generally don't want to run anything larger than 2.5". Again if not true duals, you need to replace the y-pipe.

It will end up cheaper buying all the parts and pieces and then going to a shop and have them weld it all up.

 

thats very true! but doin bigger y pipes and high flow cats without doing headers in the past has caused some problems for me in the past with my previous dakotas! but they where 3.9L V6's not a V8! has anyone done this? how good does it or does it not work!?

 

The shop manager at my local dealer told me that the factory cats on our trucks are actually pretty unrestrictive compared to most OEM converters, I may try just changing the y-pipe on mine after I get a decent intake (already got the exhaust behind the y)

 

a single pipe will give you more performance than duels

 

I have true dual on mine coming from jba shortes with 2 metallic high spun body cats .. check it out

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2577269

 

does't look to bad man!! but yeah thats gotta make one hell of a racket! i had a 96 V6 with headers, high flow cats, flowmaster 40 series and it was 3" pipeing the whole way with massive 4" tips! and that beast was louder than hell!

 

that exhaust looks real nice, if i had the time and money that would be what i would do to my truck