I was recently rear ended. Not much damage but my exhaust sounds bad and my pipes are uneven. So needless to say insurance is going to pay for a new one. With this money and my own i'm thinking about upgrading. What should I do or get so I have a mean sound and increase performance. I just put on a cone filter and rice pipe. Everything else is stock. I'm thinking about a resonator delete, u bend delete, and either two flowmaster 40 series or one magnaflow then running two straight pipes from that. All pipes would be 2.5" lemme know what you think.

Im not overly familiar with the 00+ exhaust, but im almost positive that you do not have a U-bend to delete, im pretty sure thats a W-body exclusive, and since you arent a W-body, you shouldnt have one.

The general concensus is that you should also keep your resonator, several members have removed theirs only to put them back on, because it sounded bad.

I think there are a couple members who have replaced their resonators with a glasspack as well.

Some other folks will chime in im sure, so just hang tight.

on the bonneville, you have no U-bent, that was a W-body only item, you will not see any real performance gain form any exhaust work that is after the cat. all of the restriction that you will encounter on a street driven vehicle will be the manifolds, downpipe and cat. for sound, its all personal preference, many people here have done dynomax with a highflow cat and a dynomax resonator and seem to be pleased with it, deleteing the resonator generally will cause a drone at highway speeds and a respy sound with higer RPM, so removing the resonator is generally not prefered, however it is all based on opinion

wow all this is really good to know. so keep the resonator...but what about a good sound. u say mayb a glasspack instead of the resonator. and would the flowmasters sound ok or is that a no go. Also how would i go about dealing with the restrictions in front of my cat. High flow cat, but since i dont have much else done to the engine wouldn't that decrease back pressure giving me less performance?

I'm runnin a 3" Dyntatech race muffler and an SLP Hi-flo cat and it sounds mean at idle. A guy in town made the comment that it "sounds fun to drive". When I get on it though, it kinda sounds like a ricer. It drones between 1800 and 2000 rpm'*, but other than that I like it.

the best way to increase performance would be a set of ported exhauist manifolds, 3" downpipe and a high-flow cat. you dont need much modifications to make these VERY beneficial...

as for flowmaster, i try not to steer people one way or another on exhaust, since the sound is all personal preference... personally, i like dynomax over flowmaster (especially on a V6) , but thats my preference

Slip a 3.5 or 3.4 pulley into that muffler and you'll be proud of the performance...but it won't sound much different.

If i would add a smaller pulley dont i need to do other things too then...hmm i guess thats off topic sorry guys

a 3.5 should be ok with just a 180* thermostat

a 3.5 should be ok with just a 180* thermostat[/quote]

Maybe a FWI OR CAI if you dont have one