Exhaust Flowmaster Pain - What Now?

[vreference]

This is a bit of a story but there are three questions below if you want to get to the point. I had a pretty much stock '94 GT about 10 years ago. I bought a cheap American Thunder cat-back and liked it but it wasn't loud enough; I put on an offroad H-Pipe and it was glorious. Maybe a little drone at highway speeds but not irritating; reasonably quiet when driving normally, satisfying and loud at WOT.

Fast forward to present, 2014 GT and I finally pulled the trigger on a AmericanThunder (Super 44) axle back. I was nervous from the first start... it's rather resonant during the coyote's labored fast idle cold start. Quiet, almost too quiet, at normal idle. Utterly annoying at part throttle between 1200-2200... and disappointing at WOT.


It's so frustrating. Entirely too loud when just put-putting around town, and disappointingly quiet at WOT. I mean, yeah this engine is making nearly double the power so I could see it being louder at part throttle but that doesn't explain why it's so tame at WOT; sure seems like the muffler changed.

1) I heard "American Thunder" changed to Delta flow at some point; does anyone recall what muffler would have been used in about 2001-2002? I'm thinking Maybe Original 40 Series?

2) I'm thinking of doubling-down, cutting these up and welding in Original 40s using the hardware (hanger, tip, etc). I assume this would take care of the "too quiet" part of things at least. Not sure about low rpm drone.

3) I suppose I'll ask, is there any chance an off-road H pipe would cure this?


I just want that classic 5.0 Sound back; obviously you won't get the idle without ~40 degrees of valve overlap but the rest shouldn't be this hard.

 

[TT5.0ca]

This car will NEVER sound like a classic PR 5.0. It's a dohc 4V V8, 7000 rpm redline with a completely different firing order and the mufflers rear mounted.

Exhaust recs are really all personal preference but, in most cases, you get what you pay for. Flowmasters always drone.

I just did GT500s on mine. Quiet and unobtrusive with a quality sound. Unless the muffler's sound has high quality, making it louder with an H or X won't fix it. You can always make a quiet exhaust louder but, you can't go the other way very easily.

 

[mpeach1976]

I did Flowmaster 40 series axle backs on my '14 GT and I'm happy with them, but they do drone at cruising RPM's 1500 - 2200 ish. I just went with them because I have always used them on everything and liked their sound and they proved to be good with stock pipe set up.