This Hemi-powered Ram has received half a catalog's worth of aftermarket goodies, including two different exhaust systems, a cold air kit, a throttle-body spacer, headers, and a programmer. Each modification shaved off unwanted seconds, from a lumbering 10.27 eighth -mile time down to the low 9's, translating to high 14-second quarter-mile passes. So when Editor Bolig asked if we'd be interested in installing QTP's electric exhaust cutouts on the Ram, we thought, Every little bit could help.
Performance exhaust is tricky. Finding a system that provides sufficient flow is the key to giving your powerplant enough freedom while maintaining some semblance of a street machine. Were it not so, we'd all run uncorked headers everywhere on our Mopar iron. Since we wanted this truck to remain 50-state legal, we needed to find an exhaust system that would pass the strictest smog testing while still allowing our 5.7L Hemi ample breathing room. Bassani's side-exit exhaust was a true dual after-cat system that flowed freely and muted the tone just slightly so that our passengers were not deafened.
QTP's electric cutouts (QTEC) would allow us uncorked exhaust on demand with the flip of a switch. But we had to find a way to install them on the already tight Bassani system. The QTEC system is setup to be installed easily on most exhaust systems with few alterations save for some minor trimming of the existing exhaust pipe. Since the exhaust was so convoluted underneath the Ram with mandrel-bent curves and contours, along with O2 sensor bungs and the factory catalytic converters, we needed some serious fabrication innovations to engineer a way to fit the QTEC onto our Bassani pipes. Once all the cutting, welding, and grinding was taken care of, the easy part of wiring the servo-operated electric cutouts would take little time.
