150-200 HP???? I Wish!!!. Mine is more like 90 hp How much horses does your mav put out scooper? more than 200? man thats cool!
Much cheaper. And I am just estimating the 200 HP, could be more, might be less. It is faster than my 238 HP Bonneville and my 365 HP Hemi Truck, but also weighs about half as much of each. So it is just "guestimation". Once I get the power steering finished and a couple of other minor issues, I might take it to Strictly Performance where Rick Book had his dyno'd and have a run.
Personally... I dont like the glasspack mufflers. Alot of old ford trucks w/ 302s have them around here... definate sound, better than stock, but I dont know if Id like it on a 6 cylinder car. How about trying a "turbo" muffler.... not a muffler for a turbo car... but muffler called a turbo... Im not sure they still make them but used to be ran quite a bit around here.. same shape as a flowmaster, not like a glasspack.
Flow masters are more expensive, but the pipes will be the same. Look at the long term rather then short term. If you want to go with flow masters later anyway, then why not just do it now. They are not going to get any cheaper then they are now. My Mav is a stock 250 and I may be getting 175 hp out of my 200 inch 6 in my Ranchero. After having a flowmaster put on my Ranchero, I will not install another glass pack. The sound alone is night and day better on the flowmaster.
Flow Master mufflers are based on the original "Turbo" muffler. They were originally made for the Turbo Spyder Corvair's. Since then they have made it a truly tunable muffler. They have many input pipe sizes and outlet size combinations. Flow masters are very good as you can choose a muffler that will add HP to the exhaust and they come in three levels of noise. Quiet, Loud and obnoxious - all with very little back pressure and tuned expansion chambers that help extraction.
I'm with scooper on this one, I grew up with glass packs and prefer the sound of them over the flowmster style muffler. One thing that has been left out of this conversation is the factor that pipes play in the sound equation. A set of mufflers bolted directly to headers or manifold downpipes then dumping under the car will be LOUD. The length of the pipe after the muffler controls the pitch and sound qualities of the muffler. I have had glasspaks on vehicles with full exhaust systems be not much louder than stock, but with a deeper tone. Also, the longer the muffler itself, the quieter it will be. I would never run less than a 24" long one, but that's my choice. As for the difference in flow, I had a stock 454 Chevy pickup with headers that would blow off a set of turbo mufflers, clamps would not hold them. Put on a set of Cherry Bombs and never lost one again. This exhaust dumped at the rear axle on a long wheelbase truck!
My is that choosing a muffler has more to do with your personel preference and budget. To me nothing sounds better than a 302 with glass packs out the rear bumper. At least for the first six months or so. Then as the the packing breaks down, to me they start to get a higher pitch and popping sound. They last way past this point as far as holes in the muffler but to me they are worn out when they lose that deep sound. My Flowmasters have been on the car for 6 years and still sound great though very different from the glasspacks. I would suggest if you want Flowmasters ordering from Summit. My muffler shop wanted 3x the price for them as Summit but charged the same to install them. My total mufflers and install was about $225.00 from headers,over rear axle and dumped right behind back tires. Cary
Isn't there any middle ground?Glasspacks are $20 mufflers and Flowmasters are $50-60 each(cheapest I found/direct replacement for a 5.0 mustang).How about Dynomax,Thrush or the no name turbo style mufflers?The best sounding 200 I ever heard was in a '65 Falcon,with generic "muffler shop turbos"w/tailpipes all the way out.Idling you would have bet the farm it was a stock smallblock.It sounded really good pulling away too,only after it starting winding on up past about 2500 could you tell it was a six.Totally stock motor too.Most muffler shops around here will put on turbos over glasspacks for about $20 more on a dual job.
Good point Tim. We are stuck on Glasspacks vs. Flowmasters, but there is a wide variety of other mufflers out there. Just need to stay with something performance oriented and not one that is made to silence the car. I would assume (correctly? maybe?) that silencing mufflers are also power robbers.
Turbos sound great. I always liked the tone of the ones I had, but they don't flow as good as Flowmasters...
Turbos have tube baffles and walls inside, but Flow masters use plates of different shapes and location to make their sound. Glass packs are straight thru baffles with holes in them. The Turbo muffs were originally designed for Corvair and Olds Cutlas turbo cars in the early 60's.
