Just when you thought we were done with exhaust installs from our friends over at Flowmaster, they bring out their big guns with this awesome Outlaw Cat-Back Exhaust Kit for the 2009 to 2014 F150 V8s. Quite frankly, we though we were finished up with Flowmaster, too. Out of the blue, this kit landed on our doorstep, and it is impressive. The tiny Outlaw muffler and the massive 3" tubing all the way through to it's hyper-aggressive rolled tips makes this probably the loudest, baddest, and meanest exhaust kit that Flowmaster has for the F150s. There's no doubt that the kit is loud, but it's also very easy to install, even for a dual-exit kit. Just like the Flowmaster American Thunder Kit and Force II Cat-Back Kit, the Outlaw system comes with enough tubing for all of the F150 wheelbase options and features pipes for either a straight out the back exit or a dual side exit configuration for its tips. We got this awesome kit up on our 2012 F150 5.0L FX4 Project Truck in practically no time. Flowmaster is one of the most underrated exhaust manufacturers in the F150 market, so hopefully the Outlaw kit helps turn the tide.
Just like any of the installs we do at Stage 3, our first step was to head out to Extreme Performance out in Goodyear, Arizona, to get some help from Marty and his guys. Marty had a full shop, but was kind enough to juggle a few cars around and get our truck up on a lift. Marty, himself, even did the install of the Outlaw kit so a big thanks to him for helping us out and squeezing us in on short notice.
The stock cat-back kit is built to keep your truck quiet and features both a forward resonator and mid-mounted muffler. The first step of our cat-back installation was to hit all the piping connections with penetrating oil to help make Marty's life much easier.
After letting the penetrating oil do some work, Marty removed the bolts holding the resonator pipe to both the muffler's pipe and our F150's mid-pipe, before completely removing the whole assembly.
With the resonator pipe out, Marty maneuvered the muffler tube and over-axle pipe out of its hangars, over the axle, and out of our truck.
Like most dual-exit kits, the Outlaw system comes with a good amount of piping and hardware. The good news is that fitment is pretty good, if a little tight some places due to the size of the 3" piping leading out of the muffler.
The first actual step of our Flowmaster Outlaw cat-back install involved Marty removing the stock bolts and threading Flowmaster's bolts through the flange of our stock mid-pipe before hooking up the Flowmaster kit's inlet pipe.
Due to the long length of the inlet pipe (thanks to the very small muffler in this kit), Marty had to grab an axle stand to hold it up.
The good news is that the muffler is so small that Marty didn't need another axle stand in order to support the thing.
With the muffler fairly secure, Marty grabbed the driver's side over-axle tube and slid its hangar through the upper bed exhaust mount before sliding it into the the muffler's driver's side outlet.
Once Marty got the driver's side fitted in nice and snug, he grabbed the passenger's side over-axle tube and fit its hangar through the aft exhaust mount and its tubing into the passenger side outlet port on the muffler.
Next, Marty installed the hangar mount for the driver's side exit tube. The hangar is included in Flowmaster's kit and bolts right on to the bed rail.
After the the mount was in place, Marty slipped on the red hangar for it and installed the driver's side outlet tubing by fitting its hangar through the mount and tubing into the driver's side over-axle tubes.
With all of the main tubing in place, it came time to choose our tip configuration. We decided to show the rear-exit configuration first, so Marty grabbed the kit's "S" piping and attached it to the outlet tubes.
And here's where we hit our first snag with this kit. The straight rear exit required us to move our Rigid Industries Diffused Duallys that are part of our Starkey Backup Light Kit. Marty just popped them off and stowed them in the bumper so we could get photos, but there is a fitment issue with the lights on those in-board bumper bolts. More on that later.
Before he got the tips on, Marty went back and tightened down the bolts on the inlet pipe flange and installed Flowmaster's hangar clamp onto the inlet tube before sliding it through the truck's forward mount.
With the inlet tube squared away, Marty went through the entire system and threw on Flowmaster's clamps on all of the piping connections before tightening them down nice and snug.
After Marty had everything but the tip "S" pipes tightened down, he popped off our rear Duallys to fit on Flowmaster's exhaust tips.
Once the Duallys were out of the way, Marty installed the exhaust tips onto the Flowmaster rear-exit S-tube assemblies.
It took a little fine-tuning to get the tips aligned, but the end result is pretty impressive.
Given that we actually like the Duallys where they were, we had Marty throw on the Flowmaster 90° bends for a dual rear side exit, instead straight out the rear. He removed the two S-pipes and fit on the bends in practically no time.
Once he had the 90° pipes in place, Marty fit the tips on and tightened everything down while making sure the tips were aligned and even.
Due to the very large outlet tubing included in this kit, our brake lines and rear axle wiring rubbed against the driver's side outlet tube. Marty zip-tied them out of the way.
The final step of our Outlaw kit install was to get our Duallys back into place.
With our Duallys back where we needed them, our Flowmaster Outlaw cat-back install was complete.
This kit is outright mean and loud. Check out our video below:
I have the same muffler on my Dakota SLT and it sounds awesome. I opted to have turn downs on mine.
