I have a 2000 Dodge Ram 1500 with a 5.9 Magnum that has been bored .30 over, M1 intake, larger throttle body, jegs updated heads with arp bolts, polished crank, pistons, larger rings, and comp cams extreme energy cam. I am having a personal debate with myself on what exhaust I should do. I already plan on adding shorty headers to get rid of the stock manifolds. I just don't know if 2.5" or 3" would be a better choice. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Why not run long tubes and duel exhaust with a X pipe? 2.5 would be fine there but go with 3 if you stick with the single exhaust.

 

On my truck with a 5.9 gas engine, I replaced the catalytic converter with a unit that has a 3" outlet (common on Chevy trucks) and went with a single exhaust 3" cat back system. Listed below are the parts I used:

Dynomax UltraFlo Welded Muffler - 17233

Magnaflow Converter - 99047HM (dual 2" inlets, 3" outlet, front O2 sensor port)

3 - 3" band clamps (back of cat, front + rear of muffler)

1 - bung for rear O2 sensor

I took these parts to a local muffler shop and he removed my stock cat/exhaust parts and installed the new parts listed above, in addition to supplying the necessary 3" muffler piping and fabricating a new 3" tailpipe. We also installed two new O2 sensors and everything works very well. Also, I already had JBA shorty coated headers on the engine.

 

I was looking at long tubes but my truck is a 4x4 and from what I have looked into has said it would have clearance issues. And I forgot to mention that I want true duals all the way back and dumped down before the back tires. I also did plan to use the x pipe with either 1 dual in and dual out muffler or with 2 single in and single out mufflers.
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My 78 Power Wagon I put on long tubes with duels but had to route the exhaust(drivers side) around the t case. If you do that you can get a two in/two out cat that would work similar to a X pipe.

 

Ok thank you, I will definitely look into it that way!
I Think I will go with 2.5 for all exhaust from headers to dumps, thank you for the inputs. What LTs should I look into?

 

Could you post some pictures of what you did around the t case by chance?