Buying Pypes Catback Question

FYI, the Violators ARE a straight-through design. I've been running 'em on my notch for a year and a half, now, and LOVE 'em.

Ah, true. If there's one thing Violators absolutely are not, it's quiet. But it's a damned good kind of not-quietness.

They're a straight-through muffler in that I can pick the thing up and look right through the sucker clear to the other side. The main tube has a bunch of little D-shaped notches punched/sliced out of it, whereas other straight-through muffs just have a bajillion tiny little holes drilled through their center tube. If there's any insulating material inside the muffs for sound-absorbtion, it's damned light, because the muffler has a very hollow sort of sound, much like that of Spintechs. Supposedly, you can reverse the muffler so that the D-shaped louvers (louvres? However it's spelled) will face the opposite direction and more exhaust gas/sound will be trapped within the muffler by being cut out by those little notches, instead of skipping over them, thus quieting the exhaust note a bit. I haven't ever tried this, myself, so I can't really say for sure how it would sound by comparison, but I would imagine it isn't a HUGE difference in volume, just perhaps a difference in sound/tone.

FWIW, I have the original-style non-stainless Violators from when they first came out and were selling them for $80 a pair at the World Ford Challenge a couple of years ago. Their design may have changed slightly, but I'm pretty sure they're not significantly different as far as their internal design is concerned.

Also, I'm pretty certain that Pypes has a cut-out view of the Violator muffs on their website if you dig through their site a bit.

If you're referring to the Dynomax Super Turbo cat-back, I've had it ... and, technically, I'm still sort of running it, too. I kept the flow tubes and tailpipes from the cat-back when I got my Pypes Violators and just swapped out the muffs (needed to trim the tailpipes about an inch on both sides, because the older Violators were a tad longer in length).

Frankenstang also has a Dynomax Super Turbo cat-back on her '86 GT 'vert.

In any case, they're about as quiet as you can really get, and as close to stock as you can find without really choking things off. Given, they don't flow nearly as well as any straight-through muffler will, but they definitely are quieter than most, all-around.

HOWEVER ... it also kinda depends on what sort of circumstances you're wanting quietness under. That is to say, there are some that are even quieter than the Super Turbos at idle and easy driving, but they will open up and roar at WOT; a couple of examples would be the Dynomax Ultra-Flows and Hooker Maximum Flows. I've had the latter of those two and loved those almost as much as my Violators - I've ran them on a '94 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a '76 Gran Torino, and a '91 Trans Am - however they were a bit too tame for what I wanted out of my notch, and the price of the Violators (at the time) was impossible to pass up.

If you search a bit, you might be able to find that one thread where someone copy-pasted an article from a magazine that did a decibel test on the various kinds of popular mufflers for Mustangs, and gave a comparison of them at idle, cruise, and WOT. It was kind of unusual that some of the straight-through types could be the quietest on the list at idle and cruise, and yet almost peg the decibel meter at WOT, whereas a lot of the chambered mufflers had a less dynamic difference in sound between those three instances.

IIRC, the Hooker Maximum Flow was about the quietest on the entire list at idle, still among the quietest at cruise, but also among the loudest at WOT. If you're looking for something that's stealthy until you really romp on it, especially a muffler that's not going to choke off your exhaust at all when you're running forced induction, then I'd recommend those as the best way to go. I don't know if you can really get Hooker Maximum Flows in a pre-set cat-back package, but you can easily buy a pair of flow tubes (or are you running a single 3" or larger exhaust?) and some stainless tails from either Dynomax or chromes from MAC, and then buy the Hooker muffs (or whichever brand you prefer) to throw inbetween 'em - a few bucks extra, but not a HUGE added cost, really.

Flow tubes = approx. $50
Tailpipes = $75 to $100
Mufflers = approx. $65 apiece

However, I'll still stick by my endorsement of Pypes Violators as an all-around kickass muffler. :nice

I second the endorsement for the violator cat back. They aren't that loud when you make an effort to be quiet. Let the revs come up or the throttle come down and it's a different story. I try not to piss off my neighbors and lugging the car, you can't hear it too much.

Hooker Max Flows FTW... We got some and had them on my dads 91, and you couldnt hear the thing run at idle, it was extremely quiet, and even at cruising speeds. It didn't really seem to be anything out of the ordinary up top, but they are straight through and make power. For anyone going sleeper and wanting to make power, these are the mufflers to get!

Ahh yeah they dont hav them in a catback... you have to piece it together.