Well, I had 'em put to the bedrails today. It's 6.5cm away from the sides of the rail, because I didn't like the look from the front with them all the way out. Since I was there I also had 'em make some brackets for the underside of the bed for the toolbox, and it's now 1" away from the stacks, which gives me a grand total of 42" of bedspace I'll have pics up in the morning, but it definetly looks better.

 

John,
I ordered stacks yesterday and I found all of the plumbing I need. I hope to do something very similar to yours over the next week or so. I have a few questions:
What did you use at the bottom of the T fitting? It comes real close to the gas tank if I come down in the middle of the bed, did you put a heat shield of some kind between the tank and the exaust?

Tengu

 

I came down in the middle of the bed, and used a harmonic balancer off a 350 to trace the outline, then my friend plasma cut the hole out. No heat shield material was added, because from what I saw, the tank already has some sheet metal around it. The way it was done was , from the front of the truck, downpipe, muffler, then pipe, we measured the middle of the pipe to the hole in the bed, then cut off the pipe, removed the rest of the pipe, welded on a 4 to 5" reducer, then put a 90 degree on it. From the 90 went the 45 welded to the T (after 3" was chopped off so it wouldn't be _that_ high off the bottom of the bed). We used exaust clamps (band style) in almost all the places for removability. Here is the best pic I could find:

 

I now have 42" of bed left, yay...

 

I don't see any sheet metal on mine. It is a long bed and has the plastic tank. I am thinking that I sould put a heat shield. Also I was wondering if you replaced the down pipe itself. Mine looks to have a 3" downpipe, it goes to 4" at the outlet of the muffler. The trouble is that I am prompted to do something about the exaust because it was the muffler that fell off to begin with. What is the cheap way to go with regard to the muffler?
I am thinking of doing the same thing and using 4" right up to under the stacks and then using a 4" to 5" adapter. I know that I won't get any real performance boost out of the thing without changing the downpipe as well but I just don't have the dough to do it all right now.

 

The 04.5-05's have a 4" dp from the factory. I REALLY like the sound of the Magnaflow 20". Adding that little section of pipe to each side really changed the overall tone of the truck. If you're going for a slightly quieter stack setup, the 30" Magnaflow I had before that REALLY sounds good, but was too quiet. I like the rumble at idle and low throttle that sounds great, especially cruising around town in 3rd gear with the TC locked up (I consider doing 50 in a 30 cruising down here, you either go or get run over).

 

John, it looks a LOT better, well done.

 

I think he nailed it. - JKE

 

Wider stacks look good John.