Ford exhaust system

[pluto]

Looking to put a new downpipe on my 97 looks like it might be a PITA, what do you guys recomend for the exhaust system, I see them on ebay but there are noticable price differences. I am not sure what the difference is. also Is the downpipe 3 or 4 inches. Should I go all the way back or will just the downpipe lower my egt's. Does running 4 inch with no cat or muffler actually increase power, (not concerned with emmissions) How difficult is it to cut or bend that body seam, looks like it will be hard to get anything up there.....Thanks---Eric

[CSP]

The downpipe is a piece of cake provided you cut the old one out in three pieces. I didn't cut my body seam, just pushed it out of the way with a duckbill spreader on a porta-power. One thing that made mine easier than some is I have a five speed and no tranny dipstick in the way.

There's no way a 4" downpipe will fit on a '97 without major cab modifications. Mine is a 3" Hypermax which flares out to 3.5", but there are a couple of 3.5" models (3.5" on the entire downpipe) that are advertised to work with the same mods necessary for the 3" versions.

For the exhaust I noticed virtually no power difference going to 4", but EGTs did drop which I find more important. You need a programmed chip to get any performance you can feel.

Bang for the buck and for ease of installation I recommend Dale Isley's Tymar exhaust. Mine took about 1.5 hours to install and most of that was spent removing the factory exhaust from the cat and my cat had been removed once before for "modifications". It's a true 4" mandrel bent system and all of the hangers are in the right places.

Dale's website sucks as it shows you nothing for products or prices, but it has his contact info and he's more than helpful via the telephone.

www.tymarperformance.com