Borla makes exhausts. We know it, everyone knows it, and even those who aren't enthusiasts have probably heard of Borla in some way, shape, or form. Borla's lineup of cat-back exhaust systems are some of the most legendary in the entire industry and their kits for the 2011 to 2014 5.0L V8 F150s are some of our best-selling exhaust systems across the entire site. Yet there's one burning question that stands above all others: what's the sound difference between the vaunted Borla S-Type versus the aggressive Borla ATAK cat-back exhaust systems. Many countless hours have been wasted surfing the endless expanse of YouTube to discover this answer, but grainy cell phone videos and less-than stellar audio on those videos tends to just deepen the mystery rather than just clear things up. The good news is we here at Stage 3 Motorsports threw up a comparison video on our YouTube page that provides an apples-to-apples comparison of the Borla S-Type and ATAK using our 2012 F150 5.0L FX4 Project Truck.
The two exhaust systems are actually pretty close when it comes to overall tone, but the ATAK is much louder, more intense, has some crackles and pop, and is much more noticeable at idle and cruising. The S-Type has good sound when you dab the throttle, but it's great sound is almost completely absent at idle (though some of that is the truck's pretty low force idle) and has practically no drone at driving speeds. Both systems do sound damn good, but it really comes down to whether your want something outright mean or something that's only mean when you take it off the leash.
The real difference in how these kits sound comes down to the internal designs of their mufflers. The F150 5.0L S-Type cat-back system features a straight-through muffler design that allows for excellent exhaust outflow and is finely tuned and balanced to help cancel out high-frequency sounds that cause interior drone and rasp. While the straight-through design is a good deal louder and more aggressive than stock, its sound scales nicely with your truck's rpm to give your an awesome tone when you punch the throttle while staying mellow at cruising and idle.
The ATAK cat-back system, however, was designed from the ground up to be Borla's vicious little attack (pardon the pun) dog. "ATAK" stands for "Acoustically Tuned Applied Kinetics" which probably means something technical, but translates into Layman's terms as "frickin' aggressive." The ATAK muffler features a race-inspired multi-core design that produces a loud, intense sound with a deep, clear tone throughout the rpm range. The ATAK system is loud, proud, and doesn't apologize for any of it and is a great way to turn heads on the street, track or trail.
So now the question becomes "which is better?" Well, that's really up to you. Both kits will give basically the same performance gains, leaving you to decide which aggressive sound is more your flavor. You really can't go wrong with either the S-Type or the ATAK systems, so the choice is entirely in your hands. The good news is, if you pick a kit but aren't a huge fan of the sound, you can always easily swap out the mufflers while leaving the rest of the system on your truck as we found out during our S-Type and ATAK Installs.
How did the cabin sound compare ?
