TESTED: Ford Performance Cat-Back Exhaust and GT350 Valence

After countless attempts at clocking the mid pipes and rear mufflers, Will decided he needed to bend the exhaust bracket to line up the mufflers with the exhaust tips.

After removing the muffler, Will put it in a vice and used a crescent wrench to bend the mounting bracket.

With the bracket bent, Will reinstalled the muffler.

In one attempt, Will’s bend perfectly aligned the Ford Performance muffler with the GT350’s exhaust tips. This leads me to believe the mounting bracket was welded to the muffler can incorrectly and about an inch too low. This was a quick and easy fix for an experienced fabricator like Will from RareFab, but it might require more trial and error for your average garage mechanic. Either way, if your Ford Performance exhaust does not line up with the GT350 exhaust tips, you may need to bend the brackets like you see above.

Both exhaust brackets needed to be bent to line up the exhaust but once aligned, Will tightened down all of the brackets and clamps and we were good to go.

Compared to the factory Exhaust, the Ford Performance by Borla M-5200-M8TBV Touring Exhaust System Touring Exhaust is a lot lighter, cleaner, and has smoother bends to it. Replacing the factory resonator with an X-pipe further lightened and hopefully improved the efficiency of the exhaust, and the 3-piece design will allow us to be able to quickly and easily change rear mufflers or the X-pipe for future testing.

With everything tightened down, we were able to put the car on the ground for the first time to see how it looked.

Next to a stock S550 Mustang GT, the GT350 lower valance gives the rear of the Mustang a more aggressive and full stance since it sits lower than the factory ‘diffuser’. The quad tip exhaust looks classy yet menacing, and from the rear when combined with the GT350R wing, our California Special is now a far cry from the looks of a base Mustang GT.

After enjoying the new look of our Mustang for a while, we went back to Palm Beach Dyno to see how much power the new exhaust made.

Strapped back on the rollers, we were looking forward to seeing what the effect of the x-pipe and freer flowing mufflers would have.