Hey, guys, Adam here with americanmuscle.com. And today, we're taking a quick look at,
listening to, and installing the Nxt Step Performance Axle-Back Exhaust,
fitting all '05 to '09 V6 Mustangs. You should be checking this out if you're looking for a
great daily driver aggressive axle-back exhaust without picking up a full cat-back and spending
a little bit more money. As you just heard from our sound clips, this guy is going to give you a
much deeper tone than the factory muffler, which by the way was very traditional,
it's very muffled, it's not going to give you that aggressive sound you want out of a muscle car.
Now, granted, you'll never make a V6 sound like a V8, especially not with an axle-back,
but you can deepen up the tone and get a little bit more aggression out of it, and that's exactly
what this axle-back accomplishes. I'm giving this three out of five on our loudness meter
because it is a little bit more volume. I will say there is a good amount of drone inside the cabin,
but if you want to hear your exhaust inside and out of the vehicle, this is a great way to go.
Super deep tones, a little bit of backfire on idle revving, and it's something that gets even louder
at wide-open throttle. At wide-open throttle, it'll actually diminish some of that drone and
it's really a lot of the exterior sound that you're going to get. On typical street driving,
red light to red light, you will hear that a bit inside the cabin. Just something to keep in mind.
Now, this one's made of a full 304 stainless steel. It bolts right up
to where the factory muffler bolted up, so you don't have to cut anything.
304 is going to be the highest quality materials in the category you can get,
409 is going to be the middle of the road, and aluminized as some of the more cheaper options.
This one's on the premium side of things, but at a pretty budget-friendly cost. It comes
in at right around 250 bucks, and what you get is basically what you see here. The muffler itself,
hangers welded to the sides there, and a new clamp to get it installed. Now, at the end here coming
out the rear, there's a big appearance change. This one has a 4-inch double-walled slash cut tip,
also in a 304 polished stainless steel. Now, the polished stainless steel is going to hold up over
time. It's got that really mirror-like shine reflection on it. Compare to the factory one,
which we will do later on in the video, it's a whole lot of an upgrade right there alone. The
rest of the muffler here is that bullet style, which gives you the sound you heard earlier on.
Now, the install, I'm giving it two out of three wrenches on our difficulty meter. There's no
cutting or anything like that. It's just a little bit more involved than say a cold air intake, for
example. We did have to make a slight modification to one of the hangers, just bending it a bit
to make sure our tip lined up in the cutout there on our factory bumper. But other than that, it is
pretty straightforward. You're just going to reuse all the factory hanger isolators on the frame.
With that said, it'll take you about an hour, maybe two from start to finish depending on
your personal experience, simple hand tools will do the trick, what do you say we get started?
Tools using the install include an impact gun, extension, 1/4-inch ratchet, 13-millimeter short,
deep, and swivel sockets are recommended to make life easier, 15-millimeter deep socket,
a hanger removal tool, and PB B'laster or something similar.
First step I'm going to focus on is disconnecting the hanger from the frame. Now,
these hanger brackets and isolators are bolted up in a couple of different spots at the front
by your tip and the rear here by where it connects to the rest of the cat-back. Now,
what I'm going to do is take my 13-millimeter socket and get this bolt off. And there's one
more up there we'll have to switch over to a ratchet for, I'm using my impact gun at first.
All right. Now, the next one is straight up. So, you have to kind of tuck your hand up here.
Can be a little bit difficult to see, but you can easily get on it with a ratchet.
Next, I'm gonna try to use my hanger removal tool to pop the hanger out of the isolator
on the other side of the muffler. All right. It's easy when you use PB B'laster or something
similar to lubricate it, it should pop right out just like this. And you can just guide
the hanger off of the isolator. All right. Next, on the opposite side of the frame here,
we have one more bracket with the isolator attached to the frame. There's one 13-millimeter
bolt. I'm actually going to use my impact gun and a 13 swivel socket to get this one off.
Next, we can loosen up the clamp holding the factory axle-back
to the rest of the exhaust. Grab a 15 socket and loosen this up.
Okay. So, let's try to disconnect those pipes.
All right. So, now that we have the muffler at least mostly off,
we can reach this 13-millimeter bolt here on the remaining isolator on the frame.
Safely bring it down and disconnect. Set your factory muffler aside.
So, we got our factory muffler off of our '05 V6 and it's on the table here next door
Nxt Step Performance Axle-Back. Now, I want to go through some similarities and differences
very quickly here. Visually, there's a whole lot to talk about when it comes to the differences.
Your factory muffler is so much bigger. It's very traditional. It's not going to give you
the sound you want to hear out of a muscle car. Now, I know it's a V6, but we can still make it
sound a lot better than it does right now. This factory muffler not only doesn't sound very good,
but with that tip there, if you can even call that a tip, it doesn't look very good at all. This new
muffler from Nxt Step Performance is going to be a bullet-style muffler. It's a whole lot slimmer.
It's got little baffling on the inside. So, it's going to open up some of that sound profile there.
Again, not going to sound like a V8, but it is going to beef up the aggression of the V6.
The big notable difference here is going to be the tip. This factory thing is just basically
bare metal cut at a slash. Now, this guy is going to be a double-walled slash-cut 4-inch tip. Now,
that's a 304 stainless steel head to toe from tip to end, so it's going to be one of the higher
quality materials and the polished finish is going to hold up over time. And it's just going to look
a whole lot more appealing at the rear end. Now, it's not a stealthy tip like some of the black
powder-coated options, but it's going to blend in really well with the exterior appearance of
the '05 to '09 body style. The chrome is very traditional. It's going to stand out a lot more
than the factory one. And overall, just going to be a lot better of an appearance look at the rear
end. One small difference here between this one and the factory one is how it attaches.
There are only two hangers on your new muffler. There were three hanger points at the old muffler,
one at the pipe connecting to the rest of the exhaust, one on the backside, and the front
side of the muffler itself. Now, we're only gonna do one on each side. This hanger over here is no
longer going to be in use, so it makes it a little bit easier to install. What we're going to have to
do is transfer over these brackets. If you took it off in the same method that I did, transfer
the brackets over to their appropriate hangers, front and back, and then we can install it.
All right. So, the way you're taking off the factory hanger is the same way you want to put
it right on the new hanger. You want to make sure that it's going on in the same orientation so
it hooks up the same way. We can let that drop down. Same thing over here. Slide that guy off
and make sure it's the same on your new one. I'm going to hit this with some PB B'laster just to
make it easier to slide on. All right. Hit it from PB B'laster from the front there. Just put
a little bit on the back. It'll help things slide on, lubricate that rubber. All right.
See that loosened up real good and it slides on. Now, we can get to the install.
All right. So, make sure you have your clamp included in the kit on the pipe
side. We're going to slide that right into the factory exhaust pipe, line that guy up. So,
with the pipe inserted, you want to make sure that's lined up. Bring over this hanger. And I'm
just going to screw this in by hand. That's going to help hold this guy in place. Now,
put all the bolts back into the hanger isolators on the frame and then we'll tighten them down.
All right. Right on the other side here, I'm going to put this factory bolt back through as well.
All right. Grab your 13 and start tightening down these bolts.
And now, at this point, just quickly to explain what we did here. I had to bend this hanger just a
tad toward our driver side just because the hanger itself wasn't aligned completely properly. So,
we had to make alterations to make it fit at the rear. So, I just bent that a little bit.
Just stick a wrench on that and just pull it back. Once you have that taken care of,
I have this bolt taken through. Just going to tighten that down with a 13
socket. Because we had to bend this, the top bracket will no longer connect to the frame,
but that's okay. It's definitely secure as you can see here, and you're good to go.
That's going to wrap up my review and install for the Nxt Step Performance Axle-Back Exhaust,
available for the '05 to '09 V6 Mustang. Get yours right here at americanmuscle.com.