Installation
There aren’t many cars that one can swap a pair of mufflers out with a couple wrenches and no cutting or welding. In fact the 05’s mufflers are so easy to R&R that we swapped ours out in under 20 minutes, twice. Once in the track parking lot where we were shooting the before and after videos and again on the dyno. Unless you’ve been eating too many donuts there is no need to raise the car to access the mufflers. Here is a quick run down of the very simple process:
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Video 1: Listen to the deeper, more raucous tone of the new Flowmaster American Thunder system on a 2005 Mustang GT. The polished 4″ rolled tips look stunning, especially with the embossed lettering.
Video 2: For comparisons sake, here is a clip of the bone stock 2005 Mustang exhaust system. It sounds better than Mustang’s of years past but still lacks authority. The slash cut 2.5″ tip however looks hideous, and reason enough to replace.
Power
We haven’t seen any egregious claims from ’05 exhaust kits just yet, though we anticipate they’ll show up soon. Mclelland explained to us that modern engines, especially those with variable cam timing like the ’05 Mustang, are not going to respond to a reduction in backpressure like older engines do. This is largely in part due to the variable cam timing and wide lobe separation angles used on modern cams. As a result the exhaust system plays very little role, if any, on scavenging and drawing the intake charge to the cylinder. It is no surprise then that we saw no significant power gains on the dyno. The factory ’05 mufflers apparently flow well enough to support as much as 425 horsepower. Once you add a blower or increase displacement is when you’ll see some gains from the less restrictive Flowmasters. Either way, the sound and looks alone are worth it if you’re looking for reasons to set your new ’05 apart from the rest.