soo, my flowmaster american thunder muffler started rattling on my this past week. im not sure what to get.. ive still got factory cats in place. i have a gt500 muffler in place at the moment, but its just not loud enough. i liked the sound of the flowmaster, but i dont think i want to go with another chambered muffler. this one fell apart in less than a year. i left the muffler off to see what a straight pipe might sound like, and it sounded just bad.. so i dont know if thats an option either. anyone have any suggestions? not saying no to a straight pipe all together though..

 

Are you sure the Flowmaster is bad? The reason I ask is that there really is not much to a Flowmaster, as in nothing really inside to rattle around. If I were you I would put it back on and check the clearance on the muffler hangers to see if they are hitting anything. You never know, maybe the clamp just got loose and was causing the muffler to vibrate. Happened to my GT duals, left side clamp loosened up after a while and was causing all kinds of noises.

 

if your looking for durability...glasspacks, they cant break or anything and never ratlle, the only thing is thatafter having it for a while, the packking is blown out so your gunne needa replace it.glasspacks have more of a deep rumbling sound and pretty loud because they have no back pressure, which is a good thing....I would go with a flowmaster thoughh, they sound way more intemidating than about anything out there...10 series the loudest...40 or 44 series step down....so basically

glasspack-cheaper,deaper sound, less back pressure, replaced sooner

flowmaster- most aggrisive sounding, cost more, last longer, 10 series loudest, 44 or 40 good though,

id choose flowmaster...sounds way better

 

yes, i made sure everything was tight on it. this was actually part of a set that was on a gt for about 10,000 miles before they were taken off because the other one started to rattle. ive put probably another 10k on this one total. im really kinda hesitant to shell out another 200+ for a muffler that might do it again.. i heard this was an issue for them a couple years ago.. this car is just too quiet right now..

 

get a flowmaster, aggrisive sound, they dont rattle caaue theres nothing in em, it could be shotty welds as well

 

sooo, i fixed my problem. i remembered that we had stored up at work, a bunch of new mufflers that never got installed from when we used to do exhaust work a lot. checked them out, none of the flowmasters we had would work, but we had some off brand vortex mufflers. so, i cut the inlet pipe and tip off the flowmaster, welded them to the vortex, cut and welded the hangers, and bam, new, free muffler. sounds pretty good. the vortex has some sort of dampening material in it that will eventually burn out, so it will get louder, but i like the sound.