popeye

Can anyone give me a definitive answer as to the &quot;legality&quot; of removing the muffler and replacing it with a straight pipe? Thanks in advance. popeye<br><br><br><br><br>'03,Patriot Blue,HO,QC,6 spd.,4x4,SRW,3500

crabman

An unscrupulous dealer could conceivably try and deny warranty for anything. For a muffler they dont have much of a leg to stand on and I honestly believe you are unlikely to have a problem just for that. You should be aware that I have only read of one guy that liked the sound straight piped. I have read of a whole bunch though that did not. Some complained of drone and some of ricer sound and some of both. Just an FYI.

pwabbott

Since there are Federal Sound Emmision Standards which make it illegal to modify any &quot;motor vehicle in a manner wich increases its sound&quot;, You might not have a problem for years, then you might just get stopped by every local sheriff of a county needing extra revenue, (that includes most in the USA today). The towns in my area also have sigs at city limits &quot;Easy on the Jake Brake&quot;, meaning, &quot;we ticket Diesels making excessive noise&quot;. <br>What is excessive noise? &quot;TELL IT TO THE JUDGE&quot;.

dodgeman01

I heard a 03 straight piped with a 4&quot; pipe all the way back and it sounded nice 8) Sounded a lot better than a the stock system straight piped.<br>DM01

Mark Craig

Popeye,

What Crabman has some strong points, but the odds are pretty slim on having a problem, it's really a cause and effect of each individual dealer. Dodge/Cummins dealers seem to be much more reasonable on an average as compared to the Ford/GM dealers though. It's like they realize mods are for the most part a good thing and they don't go to crazy on you. As for the straight pipe sound of an 03, well that's like brands of beer, everybody likes their own brand. I don't like it as it sounds pretty tinny, but there are those that like it and that's the difference in different people etc. Same reason the make different colors of paint. We use our Spiral Flow muffler and the tone of the exhaust is pretty deep with a low rumble with it. Good luck on your decision, call us if we can help you.

Mark

03dodgeram

at first i had mine straight piped but i couldnt get 4 inch pipe to replace to muffler and they put in 3 1/2 and it DID have the ricer sound, which i didnt like. so i order a pieced of 4 from napa and had it put in and it sounds great. then i took the silencer out of the turbo and it sounds like a peterbuilt cummin down the road now.

Mark Thomas

ok so if your muffler rusts out then your warranty is voided?

Patrick Campbell

What is the stock exhaust on our trucks? Is it 4&quot; from the turbo back?

Will removing the muffler have any performance or EGT lowering gains or is it merely for noise effect?

Vaughn MacKenzie

This is the conversation I had with the techie at my dealer when I took my truck in at 10,000 miles for heavy smoke at all engine speeds/loads. I had my 4&quot; exhaust and Aeroturbine muffler on at the time:

Techie: &quot;I don&#039;t think there&#039;s anything unusual about that much smoke.&quot;
Me: &quot;It shouldn&#039;t smoke at all while idling.&quot;
Techie: &quot;Well it could be your exhaust causing it.&quot;
Me: &quot;How&#039;s that?&quot;
Techie &quot;Since there is no muffler for the smoke to get trapped in it&#039;s probably going to smoke like that.&quot;
Me: &quot;No, I put that on several thousand miles ago and it didn&#039;t smoke at all until last week.&quot;
Techie: &quot;Well I&#039;ve never seen an exhaust quite like that so I don&#039;t have anything to compare it to.&quot;
Me: :

They did do more troubleshooting and found the ECM was faulty and replacing it cured the problem. The biggest challenge was educating the techie and convincing him the exhaust had nothing to do with the root of the problem.

Vaughn

Dr. Evil

Good Techs they have at that dealership....

I wasnt aware that mufflers &quot;trap&quot; smoke...

The best story I heard was a service manager told a customer that they will voild the warranty on his lift &amp; injector pumps if he installs a fuel pressure guage....go figure....

mymaur

In your owners manual packet there is a sepeate book that defines the warranty. I believe if you read this you&#039;ll find that the only thing that may possibly be voided is the actual exhaust system itself. I suppose some really genius dealer could try and void the whole engine warranty. But in reality i don&#039;t think it would stand up to the test.

It&#039;s actually written in reasonably plain english so a Phd, AKA, Post Hole Digger degree is not required to understand the jibberish presented therefore in ones warranty book.

Patrick Campbell

Still wondering if there&#039;s actually any performance or EGT benefit to removing muffler?

mymaur

I&#039;d think that there would almost have to be some. But, I&#039;d also bet it&#039;s not much. Maybe and I mean a big maybe, 1 mpg extra. and any performance improvement would be only measurable on a computer.

Just my 2 cents.

turbov6joe

In MOST states a turbo is considered a &quot;muffling&quot; device and thus there is no need for a telltale muffler in the exhaust stream to make it &quot;legal&quot;. Personally I like the sound of my rig straight piped and the added cooling of the EGT&#039;s isn&#039;t bad either. I think my truck sounds like a really ****** off big rig

Patrick Campbell

[quote author=turbov6joe link=board=20;threadid=15037;start=0#msg207919 date=1068468247]
In MOST states a turbo is considered a &quot;muffling&quot; device and thus there is no need for a telltale muffler in the exhaust stream to make it &quot;legal&quot;. Personally I like the sound of my rig straight piped and the added cooling of the EGT&#039;s isn&#039;t bad either. I think my truck sounds like a really [censored] off big rig
[/quote]

How loud is yours? Did you just cut out the muffler and put in a straight pipe? Is that a 3.5&quot; (Stock)? I would like to do this but I don&#039;t want it to be droning/annoyingly loud.