Hey, guys. Adam here with americanmuscle.com, and today we're taking a close look at,
listening to, and installing the Revel Axle-Back with Polished Tips,
available for the '11 to '14 GT. You should be checking this out, as you just heard from
our sound clips, if you're looking for four out of five on our loudness meter, something
that's gonna be one of the louder options in the category without going full straight pipe. Now,
straight pipe obviously would be more of a muffler delete since this is an axle-back. This guy here
has a straight-through bullet-style muffler with very little baffling, but just enough to keep
it from five out of five. Because I'm giving this four out of five on our loudness meter,
it's got a ton of volume, especially at wide-open throttle. Cold start is gonna be super aggressive,
running red light to red light once it warms up, you can keep it a little more on the tame side,
but I will say, guys, at deceleration at low RPMs, there is a little bit of drone inside the cabin.
Now, if you're looking for something that's absolutely drone-free, not gonna be the one for
you, but if you're willing to get a nice, really awesome volume on the outside of the vehicle
and you're okay with a little bit of drone inside the car, this is a great way to go.
Now, again, without going full straight pipe and just completely deleting the mufflers altogether,
I'd personally say this is one of the louder ones out there. Now, in terms of quality, this is gonna
be 304 stainless steel. Revel's making a really high-quality system. It's got a really nice build
with it. It's got some nice 4-inch slash-cut, polished stainless steel tips. All of this
being 304 stainless means it's really good for the guys, especially located in wintery weather areas,
seeing a lot of road salt, which as you know, can take its toll on your exhaust materials. 304
is really corrosion and rust-resistant, so you're paying for good quality stuff here.
Now, in terms of mounting it up, it's gonna use the same factory isolators on the frame and it's
gonna bolt right up to your factory cat-back. Now, if you have an aftermarket cat-back and
you're just swapping out those mufflers, you wanna make sure it has a 3-inch inlet. The 3-inch inlet
is gonna connect to that ball clamp that I'm gonna show you guys once we get to the install
portion of the video, and at the end of the day, it's gonna come in altogether about 570 bucks for
the kit. The install, I'm gonna give one out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. Axle-backs
on the '11 to '14 GT are extremely simple. There's one clamp holding it on and the rest are hangers.
I am gonna recommend unbolting the hangers from the frame to make your life easier. There's not
a ton of room to slide the muffler back to just pull the hangers out of the isolator
and we'll walk you through that process in a minute. It'll take you about an hour, maybe two
from start to finish, depending on your personal experience. What do you say we get started?
Tools used in this install include an impact gun,
ratchet, extension. Recommended would be a 13-millimeter swivel socket and a 13-millimeter
short or deep socket. Recommended is also a hanger removal tool and PB B'laster or WD-40. First step,
we're gonna start on our driver's side. We got the vehicle up in the air. Grab a 13 socket.
We're gonna loosen up the clamp holding on our factory muffler to the over-axle pipe.
All right. Now, at this point, it's a good idea to lubricate your hangers and isolators. So I
already did that. We're basically gonna push the muffler toward the rear of the vehicle so we can
expose the bolt on the bracket above. So now that we pushed this forward, we can see this
bolt here and this bolt here. We're gonna use a 13-millimeter swivel socket to get these guys off.
All right. Now, the same bracket, directly above the muffler, there's another one, but it's a
little more difficult to get to with an impact gun. So we're basically gonna go in here with a
1/4-inch ratchet and the 13 short socket and get this guy off by hand. All right. So now there's
one hanger left by the tip. And if you lubricate it, you should be able to just get it out easily.
All right. Set this guy aside, repeat on the other side.
All right. So we got both sides of our '14 GT axle-backs off. I only have the driver's side on
the table here to show you guys some similarities and differences between the factory one and,
of course, our Revel Axle-Back. Now, starting with the differences here, your factory muffler,
of course, has a ton of baffling. It's gonna minimize all the volume that you'd wanna get
out of your Coyote motor and switching over to the Revel Axle-Back, it's gonna be essentially
a straight pipe with very little baffling inside of this bullet-style muffler. Now, I know that
doesn't make it a straight pipe, but the muffler itself really is just a straight-through, very
easygoing muffler. It's gonna allow all of the exhaust gases to escape very quickly. There's very
little airflow restriction, which makes it a lot louder and more aggressive than your factory one.
Another big difference here is gonna be the size. Now, that's not gonna really make a
difference to any of the performance there. Of course, it's all about what's in the muffler
that's gonna make all of the difference, but just in terms of getting this guy installed,
it's gonna be a whole lot easier because with very little muffler to work with,
you have a lot more space to get things in and out so we can just install this bracket
directly onto the frame and then slide our hangers into position on those brackets. Now,
the reason we didn't do that off the factory one, just pulling it straight off, leaving this on the
frame, is because the muffler is so big, it runs right into the frame and the rear suspension,
not giving it enough room to get out. So with a smaller muffler, it's easy to get on and off.
Finally, tips are gonna be a huge difference as well. Your factory tip is about 3, 3.5 inches
slash-cut, double-walled. It's polished, but it's not really polished like you'd want it
from an aftermarket one. It gets dull after a while. As you can see here, it's pretty plain,
very traditional stock muffler and tip assembly, but your new Revel one is a 4-inch slash-cut,
double-walled tip, and it's polished 304 stainless along with the 304 stainless on
the rest of the exhaust here. Now, that's gonna mean it's more corrosion and rust-resistant. The
tip itself is gonna hold its polished finish a lot longer. It's got the Revel name engraved
on the tip there instead of embedded like most of the other aftermarket ones.
And then finally, my only gripe with this system is at the tip is tack-welded on
in four different locations, top, bottom, and both sides instead of being fully welded on.
The full welding would have looked a lot better, would have held up a lot longer, but this tip here
is definitely gonna stand the test of time. I would've just liked to see a cleaner weld,
getting that tip onto the assembly. Just my personal gripe, not gonna make a difference
to performance. It's not gonna come off at all. It's on there for the long run. Just worth noting.
The next step here, I'm just gonna pop off our bracket. I'm gonna grab a hanger removal
tool to help me do that. It should slide right off, especially if you lubricate it with WD-40
or PB B'laster, and then we'll hop onto the vehicle and bolt it up to the frame. Now,
that side will slide right off, but there's a little knob on the end here. So a hanger
tool will go a long way to make this easier. Basically I'm just gonna pinch this guy right off
and it slides right out. So at this point, we're gonna take this guy off
and I'm just going to install this right on the frame and then this will slide right in.
All right. So we're back onto the vehicle on the driver's side. You're just gonna take
your bracket. There's a retainer pin that'll go right into the frame to help you line it up. I'm
basically gonna take those factory 13-millimeter bolts and I'm gonna thread them in by hand
on all 3 positions. So we got one on the bottom, one on the side, one on the top.
All right. So now you can grab your 13 socket and tighten these guys down.
All right. So at this point, we're basically gonna make sure a clamp is on the end here. We're gonna
go all the way back and slide our hangers into the bracket we just installed on the frame.
All right. So they're fighting us a little bit. So I'm gonna grab PB B'laster and just hit those guys
to help lubricate it. If you need to, sometimes bending these hangers
up a little bit will definitely make life easier, getting them lined up.
All right. So we got that in, making sure our pipe is connecting properly.
Finally, that's through the hanger right above the tip.
Line it up where you want it and tighten down your clamp.
Repeat on the other side.
That's gonna wrap this one up, guys. If you're looking for an axle-back
that gets four out of five on our loudness meter without going full muffler delete,
you can get your Revel Axle-Back for your '11 to '14 GT right here at americanmuscle.com.