Nsomnya

I have read through many posts, and have seen many opinions on this. However, none seemed to address my questions.

I have a 2005 Mustang GT that I want to modify the exhaust on. It is my daily driver, and I leave pretty early. This being the case I am looking for headers back suggestions that will:
give me the best bang for the buck (HP)
not wake my neighbors at 5 AM
is pretty close to the OE sound but can be slightly louder (sorry love it)
will not drone like crazy on my way to work
(30 min drive)

My current mods are CAI and Tuner. After the exhaust I am looking at Intake, Throttle Body, and aluminum pulleys. I am new to car mods, so any and all advice is appreciated.

Thanks,
Jeff

m05fastbackGT

Hey there Jeff.. Unless you plan on upgrading to LT headers, short tube headers won't provide much if any performance gains over your stock manifolds, other than perhaps for just sound.. At any rate, your stock manifolds are far less restrictive and flow much more efficiently compared to the pre 2005-10 4.6L 3 valve models.. As for sound, most folks here on TMS recommend the FR500S aka GT500KR mufflers which produce practically little to no interior resonance drone.. Corsa's are also designed and engineered to produce zero resonance drone but are quite expensive, however they do perform as advertised..

As for cat back systems, you can also look into the Pypes and Roush mid muffler setups which delete the rear axle back mufflers altogether that also help in reducing resonance drone but still provide a louder deep/throaty muscle car sound even with the stock cats still in place over the stock mufflers..

If your interested in LT headers.. JBA, ARH, Kooks and Stainless Works are the most popular followed by Magnaflow, Pypes and BBK..

Regarding cold air intakes, you can't really go wrong with either Airaid/Roush, Steeda, Ford Racing and JLT as their all highly recommended and the most popular.. Just bear in mind that it's not the CAI itself that provides most of your power gains, but rather from custom tuning along with the CAI which provides the most bang for your buck performance..

Vendors such as Brenspeed, Steeda, JDM engineering, VMP tuning and Lund Racing are all highly recommended tuning specialists who offer both CAI/tuner packages via custom mail order tuning and also provide custom dyno tuning services.. They also carry SS pulleys in stock along with all their other products as well..

In the meantime, hope you'll find this info as helpful in perhaps providing some options for you..



-Rocky


Btw: Welcome to TMS