I bought a s.s. magnaflow muffler for an 02 trans am and some square tips also from magnaflow. I had a fab. shop bend me some duals for my alpha and it looks ****... but dispite the straight-thru design YOU COULDN'T HEAR ANYTHING! So we took off the resinator... a little better, nice quiet rumble but nothing close to what I expected. After further exploring on the lift whats this? 4 friggin cats on the alpha. Sorry guys. the only way to get a decent sound outta our 5.3's is removal of those damn "pre-cats" and then maybe we'll have some o2 problems. Maybe we can use o2 simulaters?
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Alpha Offroad,
How ironic you tried this. Just last week when I had my H3 Alpha in the shop to adjust the torsion bars and replace the front shocks we liftedthe truck to "look" underneth and discussed doing the same thing. I was shocked to see the 4 cats and then the muffler sideways for even more restriction.
Is that a cat in the very middle of the truck or the resinator? I wanted to remove that and put a high-flow muffler in it's place and then have dual pipes come out of that and exit out the rear. Is that what you did? I don't want to start down that road with o2 problems, otherwise I'll just leave it as it is. In NY the vehicle won't pass inspection without the cats in place as they do a o2 test. They plug the vehicle into a computer and can tell immediatly if someone hasbeen tampering with the cats or o2 sensor.

 

check after each "cat" to see if there is a sensor...if not then that cat (more likely just a resonator) can be removed or gutted without fear of throwing an CEL (check engine light) If there is a sensor you can still replace that cat with a higher flow one that will flow more and improve sound. Cats operate on heat, there will not be a cat towards teh back of the truck..just not enough exhaust temp that far back, anything back there is a resinator...take em off!!!

 

IK,
I had talked to an muffler shop about removing the resignator, they said that the biggest difference it would make would beincreased drone on the highway and would sound about the same at idle. Do you have experiance with removing the resignator on the I5?

 

not on the I5 but all a rsinator is is basically a single chamber straight through muffler...removing it will increase sound. I know on my wifes old Beretta I couldn't get good sound no matter what I did....I removed the resinator and the sound was great. The less meffled any exhaust is the more sound...so removing a resonator can only make things louder...then the mufflers job is to make the note deeper.

 

There both cats. Pre-cats just off the manifolds then cats then the resinator then the muffler. Pretty restrictive.

 

Why dont you Alpha guys just get the Flowmaster made for the Alpha, sounds like it would save a lot of hassle?

 

yea, so like I said...remove the resinator and sound will increase, or go with high flow cats.

 

I agree with IK, and you would be suprised what a set of hi flow SS cats (the back set) can do. The front ones require more work because of sensor issues.

 

I have yet to see one offered for the Alpha???