Great site and great forums here, I just registered but I've been parusing the forums for some time now :)

Here's my situation:  My 2002 GT 5sp is stock except for the k&n and silencer mod.  I ordered some flowmaster 40's at 2 1/4 to fit my stock exhaust.  This morning on ebay there was a set of full length headers and mac pro-chamber h-pipes with the MIL fixers going real real cheap.  So I bought them!  They're costing me around $430 bucks or so after shipping, but now Im left with this:

Do I order new 2 1/2 mufflers and tailpipes to finish the exhaust setup the right way, or do I get some reducers and weild the stuff up to my old 2 1/4 inch flowmasters and tailpipes?  To be totally honest I spend over $500 bucks on the exhaust and I promised my wife I would stop there for a while (haha), and I really don't wanna spend another 300-400 bucks on a catback system!

So, how much would it suck to leave the end of the exhaust at 2 1/4 inch?

2 1/4!!!! Wow, talk about breathing through a straw...save your money dude. Just dish it out now and buy a new cat-back system. Otherwise you are just wasting your time & money.

[QUOTE=Redline5th]yeah[/QUOTE]

Really!

The mufflers won't do jack for you dude, as long as your Stang is breathing through your pea-shooter exhaust pipes you are just wasting your money and creating noise.

Upgrade the size of your exhaust pipes to 2 1/2 or 3 inch for around $400 bucks WITH mufflers, you can put her up on ramps and install it in your driveway. Buy Magnaflow ;)

Your car won't gain any HP by a gear change, all your doing is changing your initial acceleration speed. Start with your exhaust man, it's the basis for ALL engine mods. The more air you can push out of the motor, means the more air you can allow into it and SEE performance gains, opening up the doors for intake mods, CAI...a blower...nitrous......etcccccccccccc.

Bite the bullet dude, you screwed up buying those mufflers hoping for performance. Everyone has done it before, I screwed up everything twice with my old car, it cost me about 4 times the money to run 14.0-14.3's all day than it should have. Sell'em and get to work on a true exhaust system ;)

I KNOW flowmasters wont do jack for hp and gears dont increase hp.  I LOVE the flowmaster sound and I WILL sacrafice 1 or 2 hp over magnaflow just for it.  Gears will increase torque multiplication, which WILL increase my acceleration and 1/4 mile times.

I just wanted some friendly advice because I've never done something as idiotic as having different size exhaust pipes before.  I was wondering if anyone else has done it and wanted someone elses advise other than my own.

By the way, the flowmasters were for sound NOT performance.  I didn't care for going faster in this car until I started reading these forums... I owned a 91GT and stuffed a 460 in it and this is my 4th mustang, so I've been there done that.  Exhaust may be a great foundation for other mods, but it takes more than just rwhp to get through the traps first.  Why do I want to spend an extra 250.00 on more exhaust work to squeeze out 2 more hp when for the same investment I can get 20% more torque to the ground?  That was my dilemma, I didn't know what to expect running it like that.  Thanks for your help.

Well if that's how you look at it, keep your manifolds and pea-shooter exhaust, do your gear upgrades and be done with it.

Why not do exhaust work the right way, and see benefits better than 2hp rather than wasting your money on a wanted 'NOISE' increase and minimal hp gains? I personally don't care what you do to your car, and you asked for opinions.

As far as gains from gear upgrades, 2-3 tenths, maybe more....

Buuuuuuuut, why do gears and why do exhaust, when you can put nitrous on your car?  It's what your implying...

[QUOTE=Jugador]nitrous fixes everything at all times.  its the only answer.  he just doesnt say gears cause his car doesnt have any![/QUOTE]

Lol, its good to see someone has a sense of humor without being a smartass...

Thanks for all the advice guys, Im gonna wait to put the exhaust on until I get some money together in a week or two.  I am *actually* ,believe it or not, going to consider going with magnaflow exhaust instead of flowmasters :)  I will decide in a few days which way to go over the next couple days of reading posts.

Okay, so I read this thread again...

You bought long tube headers & a new h-pipe. Why did you buy this set up if you are so anal about spending money to do a free flowing exhaust?  If you put your long tubes on, and your h-pipe, do you plan on doing a 2 1/2 or 3 inch exhaust? If not, you just wasted even more money on such a large exhaust upgrade only to bolt on your soda straw exhaust pipes from the h-pipe back.

My suggestion is: In the mean time, go ahead and install your gears. Enjoy them, then think about how your going to complete your exhaust upgrade.

First, have your long tubes installed, cats & h-pipe, if your h-pipe is 2 1/2 or 3 inches, go ahead, FORK out the money and put matching size pipes to, and after your mufflers. Otherwise, you are going to waste serious cash to see MINIMAL hp gains...

You said you weren't worried about speed and hp until you came here...so take our advice, I'll be more than glad to give you my opinion.

Hey man, I've been there and done that, time and time again with my old Iroc-z.

If you have the money to throw away, then go ahead and throw those Flowmasters onto your exhaust and enjoy the noise ;) I don't have the money to do stuff like that, so I'm required to do things in a more logical way for the budget built man.