Not to hijack this thread but where were you able to get your headers installed? I've been looking for a place in the Boston area that is willing/able to do the work but so far have not been successful....
I was fortunate in that the headers were already installed when I bought the truck this past fall/winter. They also have the pre-CATs welded in. Unfortunately, I have no idea who did the work as I bought it from a dealer. I assume it was to remedy a cracked manifold problem. Shortly after owning it I developed the CEL p0420 code, and the vsc/trac lights, but haven’t fixed those yet. I’ve looked for leaks but so far haven’t found any, so maybe one of the cats is bad, not sure. At this point, I’ll probably just buy the URD simulator and be done with it, because not only would replacing those welded in CATs be cost prohibitive, but finding someone to do it is nearly impossible as you’ve found!
all muffler will drone at a certain rpm, smaller the muffler the louder the drone, and also the design. certain mufflers give a certain sound, if you want loud the flowmaster does it. theres a youtube video of a user here that did 2 flows on the v8. it sounds mean.
borla and magnaflow might give a tamer sound. i say try either the magnaflow your looking at, or a borla universal muffler. if you find one on craigslist thats good, dont pay too much for it. also the XSP 4runners have the duals too, the v6 one will bolt right up after you mod the inlet pipe a couple inches shorter.
i got lucky the muffler guy didnt charge me after i gave him a hand with a customer brand new corvette.
Thanks. Yeah, I think I’m over the really loud Flowmaster stuff like I used to run on my old 5.0 Mustangs, so the slightly quieter, but still nice sounding Magnaflow and Borla type is what I’m leaning towards. As I mentioned, I installed a Gibson on my previous 5.0 Explorer, and loved the sound, but the fit was terrible, and it rusted completely in about a year! Granted it was the “aluminized” version, but still, most stock systems last WAY longer than that, especially considering I paid like $350ish for it! I wasn’t planning to keep it for many more years, which was why I didn’t spend the extra for stainless, but for my 4Runner, I will definitely go stainless, regardless of brand.
Thanks, I’ll have to go through that thread again. I think I browsed that when I first bought the truck, but at the time thought I probably wouldn’t drop the coin JUST for sound, and would wait until there was an excuse to replace it. I just didn’t think it would break so soon, because it has very little rust! It literally ONLY rusted where the connections to the muffler are, and fortunately broke at the rear of the muffler so it’s still driveable until I find a good replacement.
ill let you know when i install it, maybe we can meet up so you get a better idea.
That would be awesome, thanks! We travel all over MA and CT for business, so that may work well.
