Hi everyone. New 03 owner here with questions.

[MyZinc03]

WOW! What a forum!! Just finished going through all 50 or so pages. Info is amazing. Anyway, I just got a zinc 03 and wanted to chime in. Im from Old Bridge NJ and live like 1 mile from Englishtown. How convenient. :thumbsup: So if there is anyone in my area please drop me a line. Would love to meet other 03 owners. I had a 97 cobra a few years back so this is not my first. Though by far the fastest!! As I have noticed while reading the boards, a K&N and silencer delete is a must according to most everyone. Got this done last night but did not have a chance to drive the car yet. I had a K&N in my 97 and was not that impressed with the gains. I know that this is a completely different car since its blown so the outcome may be more positive. Everyone on here cant be wrong so I guess I just have to go for a ride and see for myself. Next issue for me is the cat-back. I saw one post where someone said the Flowmaster American Thunder system took away HP!! Is this a fact or just a rumor??? I have a brand new system that was given to me by a friend as a new car gift and am planning to install it this weekend. Its a little hard for me to believe that this system will take away power as opposed to the stock setup. Maybe the gains wont be as much as the Bassani or Maganflow, but power loss???? :shrug: Please shed some light on this for me if you could. It was a generous gift from a good friend so it will be installed. I just wanted to know what the real deal is here. Thanks alot everyone!

 

[ArizonaSnake]

Don't know about the horsepower figures. Since the exhaust is a free gift... I suppose trying it would not be a problem. I had Flowmasters on my 94 GT and found them to be too loud. I am completely satisfied with my Magnaflow setup. Very tame at idle.. but nice note when I'm in it.

 

[3rdstang]

Well 2 differant animals here but I had 2 chamber flows and 2 and a half inch off road pipe on my old 85 GT with a 351 in it and it was WAAAAY too loud and lotsa drone. Like I said 2 totally differant set ups but heck you didnt pay anything for them and it is not a major untertaking to change the cat back so I would give it a try. I seriously doubt there would be a HP loss as the stock exhaust is so restrictive. Do a search on the stock exhaust and you will see pictures of all the bends and crimps in it.

 

[Cobra'03]

Not everyone likes the K&N. I have a Holley Track Flow, but ended up with the AFE filter in the Amazon Racing air system. Both the Holley and the AFE are built better IMHO.

 

[Blue03Cobra]

Originally posted by MyZinc03
I had a K&N in my 97 and was not that impressed with the gains. I know that this is a completely different car since its blown so the outcome may be more positive.

The gain on my '03 was significantly more than on my '98.

Originally posted by MyZinc03
I saw one post where someone said the Flowmaster American Thunder system took away HP!! Is this a fact or just a rumor

I believe there was a magazine article that showed that two-chambered flowmasters had a negative effect on RWTQ on a '01 Lightning. I put the '99 Cobra catback (American Thunder) on my '03 and the seat-of-the-pants gain was palpable. My dyno numbers are with K&N and catback only, a '03 vert that dyno'd the same day was about 18 RWHP less, with just K&N... I didn't get a "before and after", but I believe there was a gain with the Flowmaster catback.