Went as well as I could have expected. Sound is perfect for what I was looking for. Nice mellow tone and not too loud at all. I first cranked it up in the garage and it did not blow me out at all. While some might have been disappointed, I was very pleased. I'm putting a couple of pix below but will be putting up a DIY soon.

However, I've got a little problem I could use some advice on. When I went to put on the driver's side pipe, I realized I would have to drop the spare a little so I could push it over. Well, when I got everything button up and raised the spare, I realized the tire is touching the pipe. And I think, even if I figure out how to rotate the pipes over a little bit, it will still be touching or too close. I called Gibson tech support but all I could get was a sales rep because their power went out earlier and they sent the tech support people home. Pretty knowledgable guy but not who I wanted to talk to. I'm thinking I'm going to end up with 2 options. Either move the spare tire to the bed of my truck (which I don't want to do and is why I did NOT buy the dual extreme kit - because Gibson said I would definitely have to move the spare for that) or devise some sort of effective heat shield. I mentioned a heat shield to the sales guy and he said they have recommended such a thing in some cases in the past but it was not the best option. What do you guys think? If you think it will work, what's the best material to use? Would it help to wrap the pipe with something? He also mentioned that somebody might have something available that would actually move the spare over a little - some sort of bracket or kit of some kind. Anyone heard of such a thing?

 

yeah, you don't want it touching the tire for obvious reasons. Try to shift things the best you can and go to your nearest auto parts store and buy a roll of hi-heat header wrap. Wrap the pipe from well before to well after the tire and secure with metal hose clamps at each end, well away from the tire...

 

Any suggestions on how much wrap to use (thickness)? I realize the thicker the better but the thicker it is the tighter the squeeze is gonna be between the tire and the pipe. I have to crawl back under and look but it's possible I could pull the pipes out from the muffler a little and the pull the muffler back from the head pipe a little bit and move the tailpipes back as a whole and get more clearance - but I won't know until I look again.

 

is there any way to shift the tire away from the pipe and hold it away as you crank it up against the bed? I know with the 17" spare there is some movement, may not be with a 20".

 

i think you could just move the winch over and drill some new holes in the mounting plate and bolt it back on. you would have to grind a slot for the cable to go through since it would be moved over. the tire might sit a little cocked in the rack under there so you might have to cut move and weld that if you dont like it sitting cocked...

of you could do what hammer suggested...

 

I can hold the tire to the side as I crank it up but when you get it all the way up, it still wants to center itself, so that won't work. No time left today to dick around with it but I'll come up with something tomorrow and I'm gonna call the tech support people back too and see what they say. If anything drastic is required, I'm going to try and hold their feet to the fire for a fix since this kit is for my specific model and even the sales guy admitted that most have 20" tires and spares so it should work without modification. Maybe I can move the pipes more than I think. We shall see.

 

theres a lot of room for movement in my magnaflow system...

 

Send it back and get a system that fits. My Magnaflow out the rear clears both sides of the tire nicely.

 

can you bend the pipe a little? You only need to get a few inches of clearance to be safe.

 

I think I just made a rookie mistake and instead of spacing things out, I just fitted everything together as close is it would go. Look at the pic below against the yt vid of the same exhaust on the same truck below. His pipes exit out quite a bit further back than mine do. I should be able to just loosen the clamps and take an extra half inch or so at each connection and get the clearance I need.

I got nothing against Magnaflow and was going that route until I found this and the price was right since I didn't find the deal on the MF's some of you were able to get. But the sound of these are perfect for me, my research paid off, and I certainly don't want to change now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKmHp3UI4ns