Did a full custom exhaust mod on my R/T. Removed everything from the cat back including the massive and highly restrictive resonator. Added an X-Pipe from the cats, full stainless back to two 14-inch mufflers from Thermal Research & Development. The stock setup goes from 2 1/2" inch cats restricted down to 2 1/4" pipes. I went 2 1/2 all the way back. The throttle response is much better - I'm seeing nearly a 1.5 mpg gain overall. The sound is perfect - nice deep growl at start, sounds like the Cherokee SRT when you get on it but no drone/nice sound when cruising, even with the MDS kicking in. I'll get a video on here soon to share - I was a bit apprehensive to tinker with the exhaust given that few have/lots of unknowns out there. But I'm very happy I did.

 

Good Job. The stock exhaust is pretty nice, I can't even imagine how awesome your sounds.... Tempting! Question is what did it cost? Ballpark....

 

http://www.thermalrd.com/product.htm

I had never heard of them. Build quality?

 

The real question, besides sound and mpg is, have you had it on a dyno to see the possible hp and torque gain?

 

X2. I'm not as concerned about price or mpg...I would want extra performance. Frankly, if he didn't have it dyno'd before the exhaust change....it's too late to compare now.

That's the thing about performance mods. You really need to know your baseline, then you can compare back to it. Seat of the pants dyno will always show a nice power bump after spending $1000 and making it louder....however, a real dyno sometimes shows a loss of performance (not to mention sometimes you add power where you don't need it and rob it from your most usable range).

On the other hand, if he just wants it to sound nice, I think he hit his sweet spot.

 

@2011Heat - $700 for the system. Would've been cheaper but I had a custom designed X-pipe so that a didn't have any funky angles for the pipes (all mandrel bent BTW). The quality of Thermal RD is excellent - I knew little about them too but did some homework before installing. I'd say the quality is most similar to Magnaflow, although I find the tone a bit deeper.

Yes, it's been on the dyno both stock "out of the box" and now (with only the exhaust and a drop-in K&N filter). I don't have the chart in front of me so I can't give you the exact RWHP numbers, but I know I picked up 22 RWHP and 25 RWTQ - very good gains for the limited mods. You can feel good strong pulls in the low-end torque bands (around 2500-2700 RPM). It really kicks at about 60 MPH.

 

Good job. Most people have no idea whether they gain, lose, or stay at the same power level because they start adding parts and never get a baseline. If we dyno'd all our D's, I would not be surprised to see a difference of 20 points on either HP or Torque between the best and worst.

Snap a shot of your dyno sheets & post them.

It will be nice to have that up here. Then, hopefully we can get more added over time. That will be hugely beneficial to others down the road. If I was to do performance mods, I'd want more low and mid-range torque, because that is where I normally drive. If a guy wanted to run the dragstrip, he'd want it up higher in the RPM range. Having some guys put up dyno sheets will help us all choose what mods to do and determine what mods work best.

 

22 & 24 are the advertised details or you actually saw that gain on a repeated pull on the Dyno?

+1 on lets see the slips.

IndyD

 

Those are actual gains as measured by an Inertial Dynamometer. I'll get the slips and the sound clips. Damn job always gets in the way of fun!

 

Cool. Looking forward to seeing the data.

You are one of very, Very, VERY few people who run their new vehicle on any Dyno, much less to do it pre install and post install of a muffler.

IndyD