Installation Time
(approx) 2 Hours
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
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Justin: The Roush Cat-Back that we have here will be one of your more aggressive systems available for the 2015 and newer standard 3.5-liter EcoBoost F-150 while also delivering a very cool look thanks to the dual black tip side exit design. Now, interested truck owners can look forward to a full 304-grade stainless construction here, complete with those unique 4-inch tips for right around that $1,200 price point. Installation may require the smallest amount of trimming to your lead pipe here, but still very straightforward stuff. That's why the site's going to go middle of the road, two out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter. Maybe a couple of hours of your time from start to finish as we'll demonstrate later in the video.Well, let's not waste any more time and jump right into the signature Roush tone that you can expect from this system. And as you all heard with our sound clips at the top of the video, if you want plenty of volume with your 3.5 Eco, the Roush here is certainly not going to disappoint. So, opening up that wake the neighbor scale, I have the Roush coming in pretty solid with a four out of five on the old one to five or one to wake the neighbor scale. And while the volume, yes, is plenty healthy outside of the truck, the tone is really the big story here for me, zero rasp, a lot of turbo noise, and plenty of pops and backfires coming down off the revs, which I always think sounds pretty cool with the EcoBoost trucks.Now, inside the cab, on the other hand, you're certainly gonna hear this thing while cruising, but I wouldn't refer to it as offensive drone or anything that might steer you away from this very popular system. So, just how does Roush go about achieving this very unique and kind of in-your-face tone and volume? Well, for starters, this system does delete your factory F-150 resonator using your lead pipe here, and you're going to expect a pretty solid jump in sound just from doing that alone. However, the star of the system no doubt is going to be your signature Roush hollow-chambered muffler design, which is going to allow for all that volume, of course, and all of that sound, but they don't use any internal packing in this thing. And that's a design I like because traditionally, that stuff kind of blows out or burns out on you over the years. That's not going to happen here. So, as a result, you're not going to have to worry about that tone or that volume changing on you if you keep this system on your truck for any given amount of time.Construction-wise, another highlight here with the Roush system, you are getting the premium 304-grade stainless throughout, including your 3-inch mandrel-bent tubing from tip to tip. Does pass through that hollow-chambered muffler we just talked about before exiting out the very cool-looking and exclusive twin 4-inch tips, black coating that you're only going to find right here at americantrucks.com. But now, we want to show you just how to get this system installed on your truck at home. So, without further ado, here's our detailed walkthrough of the job along with the quick tool breakdown.Man: All right, guys. Before we get started, you'll need a standard drive ratchet. You'll also need a 10, 13, 15, 21, and 24-millimeter socket. And it's always helpful to have some spray lubricant. You probably have some corrosion on your exhaust hangers. I would definitely also grab a dead blow mallet to help get some of those pipes removed. And, of course, if you want to make the whole install go a little bit easier, you can use an impact gun. You'll probably need an impact swivel socket if you're using an impact gun. And lastly, you'll probably need a breaker bar as well as a pry bar again, to remove your factory exhaust system.All right. The first thing we need to do is separate the factory cat-back from our Y-pipe. Now, you may notice this is not a factory Y-pipe. This truck currently has an aftermarket Y-pipe on it. It's being used for something else. However, the sound clips that you heard earlier were with a factory Y-pipe. So, the sound for this new system is correct at any rate. The hardware is slightly different, but this is what the factory bolt looks like. Same process. All you have to do is pull these bolts out of either hole here in the flange using a 13-mil socket. In my case, I'm using a 17-mil socket, but it's the same exact process either way.All right. Once you have that flange separated, now it becomes the goal of removing the factory cat-back from all these rubber isolators. There's four in total, two in front of the muffler and two behind the muffler on the tailpipe. Now, there's a couple of ways you can go about this. And basically, what you need to do is you need to spray down these hangers, these metal hangers, so you can slip them out of the rubber isolators. It's a little difficult to do, especially if your truck has miles on it and especially if you have some corrosion on here. We're going to make it easy. We're going to cut the job in half. We're just going to unbolt these two rubber isolators in front of the muffler, then we're going to spray down the last two in the back, and then we should be able to slip the whole system out, pull it out from underneath the truck. Now, to remove these hangers/isolators you'll need a 10-mil socket.Okay. Now that those front two isolators are removed, we're going to spray down the remaining two and the rearmost one is right here on the tailpipe next to the spare tire coming down directly on the frame rail. I'd recommend using something like WD-40 or some PB Blaster. Let's get this nice and lubed up, spray it down real good, that's going to help slide this metal hanger out of this isolator without it pulling on the isolator itself. Something to keep note of, if you don't spray these down, you can actually end up pulling the rubber isolator outside of its housing here, and you could actually end up breaking one of these hangers. All right. Now, this is the other isolator and hanger. This one is located directly above the muffler itself. And just because of the location where it's at, this one tends to get the most rust on it and the most corrosion. So, this is the one you really want to take your time and make sure you sprayed down nice and good.All right, guys, now comes the fun part. Once you've had all those isolators soaked up real good, you're going to want to grab the muffler and you're going to push the entire assembly back towards the rear bumper. That should give you just enough play here to get those hangers out of those isolators. Now, once that happens, the entire system is going to want to come down. And something to keep in mind, you also have this flex fitting up here in front of the muffler. That kind of allows the midpipe itself to kind of move around. So, when you push this thing out, the midpipe is going to come back over this cross-member and the entire midpipe is going to want to come down as well. So, it's definitely helpful to have a friend with you, and if you're doing it by yourself, keep one hand on the muffler, keep one hand on the midpipe, let the tailpipe rest on the axle here. That should support it, then you can pull the entire system out from underneath the truck. Sounds a little crazy. So, just I'll show you how we do it.All right, guys. So, we got the factory system removed. Now that we have the Roush system ready to go, we want to mark it up, make sure all our tubing fits together nicely, make sure all our clamps are where they're supposed to be. And obviously, it's just a good idea to figure out how all this stuff is supposed to fit together before you're actually throwing it on the truck. Now, while we have the two systems out, I wanted to kind of give you a quick comparison between the two, just so you could see how much different the Roush system is from the factory cat-back because at first glance, maybe there's not a huge difference between the two, but actually, there are some important differences here.And the one thing that I'm happy about is that Roush actually took the midpipe section and they enlarged it from the factory 2.5 inches to 3 inches. That doesn't sound like a huge deal, but that's all that exhaust going through that tube before it reaches the muffler. That's a big deal because that's where you're getting that really deep kind of lopey sound from. That's what makes the truck sound real throaty with this new system. That's what really opens it up. And then obviously, the Roush muffler here is probably about maybe half the size of the factory one. It's not a baffled and chambered muffler that's very restrictive like the factory one is. It's really just there to tune the profile of the sound, make it sound really good, whether you're at idle or whether you're at redline.And then coming down to the business end here, we have these really nice tips. Those are black powder-coat. They're about 4 inches in diameter at the ends themselves and they're slash-cut and rolled. They just look really cool. It's a really classic look. The black powder-coat is cool because it's a really dark matte black finish. There's not any gloss or anything like that. So, it's really understated, very stealthy-looking. It'll pair up nicely if you have any other aftermarket mods on your truck, like black wheels, maybe you got an armor bumper or something on there. It's just going to pair nicely with it. And then, of course, Roush did the smart thing here, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So, we're keeping all of our factory hanger locations.Now, sometimes when you have an aftermarket cat-back and you got some big tips on there, especially something like this, they can kind of flop around when you're driving around and it kind of looks messy. So, Roush did a cool thing here. They actually threw another hanger on the end here just behind the exhaust tips. And they actually throw in a bolt-on rubber isolator. It bolts up to the leaf pack. It's really simple. Only takes a few minutes to throw on, but it just keeps the entire system really rigid, keeps the tips exactly where they need to be, and overall, it's just going to look better when you're actually driving around.So, now that we have this system all mocked up, we're happy with how it's sitting. We're going to go ahead and we're gonna grab our midpipe and then we'll go ahead and we'll throw it up onto our factory Y-pipe. We'll throw the muffler in place followed by tailpipe and the tips, and that should wrap it up for us today. All right, guys, when we go to throw our midpipe with our little flange and extension on there, you are going to be reusing the factory bolts. Let's go ahead and get those bolts in place. We're just going to hand-thread these for now because we actually have to get one of our factory rubber isolators onto the hanger on the midpipe. We have to resecure that to the frame rail before we tighten these down. So, just get these hand-tight, get the studs through the threads, then let's get that exhaust hanger and isolator in place.All right. Now, remember, to tighten these guys down, you're gonna need a 10-millimeter socket. Okay. Now, we're going to throw our muffler in place. You want to make sure you have a clamp on the midpipe to secure the muffler. And this is the first clamp that we're going to tighten down. We actually want to keep the muffler seated on the midpipe. We don't have to make any adjustments to the muffler itself, and we don't want the muffler falling off while we're trying to get the tailpipe on. So, go ahead and zip this guy home.All right. Now, we're ready to throw our tailpipe assembly on, but there is a little bit of an issue and it's not a design flaw necessarily of the exhaust. It's just the fact that when you go to try to get that rear hanger on the tailpipe in place and you try to line up the hanger on this isolator, you kind of run into the heat shield on the spare tire. It's kind of impossible to get both hangers in place and lined up as you actually get the tailpipe to slip onto the muffler itself. So, easiest way to go about this is to just save yourself the trouble, we're going to remove one of these two rubber isolators. We're going to be removing the one directly behind the muffler because the rearmost isolator will hold the tailpipe and then the tailpipe can slip into the muffler, then we can reinstall this second rubber isolator. So, go ahead and grab a 10-mil socket and pull the bolt here underneath the bed.Okay. With that rubber isolator removed, go ahead and spray it down and slide it onto the hanger of the tailpipe closest to the muffler. Once you've done that, go ahead and spray down the other rubber isolator that's going to hang the other part of the tailpipe then we can line up everything and get it into place. All right. And then again, once you have that sprayed down, go ahead and line up this hanger, kind of press it against the spare tire shield. And once you get it just in place, start pushing it through. As you're pushing it through, you want to line up the slip-fit connection on the muffler to get the tailpipe in there. You can just kind of wiggle it around until it slides in all the way. All right. So, now that our tailpipe is in place, our hanger wound up exactly where we wanted it to. So, pretty simple. All you got to do is get that little flap on the end there, that little metal tongue inside the frame rail here under the bed, go ahead and push it up into position. I'm just using a floor jack here off-camera, but you can have a buddy help you out too. Go ahead and line everything up and get that 10-mil bolt back in there.All right. Now that we're happy with where our tailpipe is sitting, we're going to go ahead and zip down the tailpipe to our muffler assembly. And again, it's a 3-inch clamp around the outlet and you'll need a 15-mil socket to tighten this down. All right, guys. We're almost done here. Now, we have to get that splitter in place for both of our exhaust tips. It's going to come out right here and that exhaust hanger is going to end up right here next to this bolt and nut for the spring perch. We have to actually slide this little hanger in there. So, we have to loosen up this bolt. We're not going to be removing it entirely. I want to stress this enough. If you guys are working on your truck and it's under load, you do not want to remove this bolt because then you have your leaf pack flying out and nobody wants that. So, we're gonna need a 24-millimeter socket. I'm gonna use a breaker bar and I'm actually going to hold the nut on the inside here. Then I'm going to come in on the outside, I'm going to loosen up this bolt here and I'm going to use a 21-millimeter socket. We're just going to loosen it enough to slide that hanger in there.And you can see that the spring pack might've moved a little bit. If you guys are at this stage, do not re-tighten this completely until your suspension is back under load. If you tighten this up and your suspension not under load, then when you go to put it under load, you're liable to actually tear one of these rubber bushings in here. So, we're going to tighten this back up to keep the bracket in there, but we're not going to tighten it all the way until the truck's back down on the ground. But let's go ahead and slide that hanger in there and let's try and tighten this back up a bit. Okay. Now, we can throw this little splitter in place here. So, go ahead and spray down the rubber isolator inside of here. Slide the hanger through all the way, get it at the correct length, and make sure you got a clamp on there. Go ahead and seat the splitter in place. Then you can tighten down the clamp itself. Again, you'll need a 15-mil socket.All right, guys. We're just about done here. Now comes the fun part and that's actually throwing the tips in place. And they do have the appropriate size band clamps for each of these. Again, 15-mil socket for both. Just get them both lined up, make sure you're happy with how they're sitting, and you can drive these home. You can also kind of play around with a staggered setup on these. You can kind of slide them in and out to get your desired length.All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're just about done here. The last primary step is tightening up our flanges here for our Y-pipe to our new cat-back. Now, earlier in the beginning of the video when we put our midpipe on here, I used the factory bolts just as an illustration for you, guys. But again, like I said in the beginning, we do have an aftermarket Y-pipe on here temporarily installed, so I'm using some different hardware, but it's the same process. For the factory bolts, you'll need a 13-millimeter socket. And as you're tightening this down, you want to make sure that you're tightening both sides evenly. That way, the flange isn't kinked to one side. All right, guys, once you got those tips zipped down, just double-check all the flow tubes and the muffler and all the hangers, make sure everything's nice and tight. Double-check all the connections up front near the flange so you don't have any leaks. And that should wrap up this very easy install.And that also wraps up my review of the Roush Single Exhaust System in the factory side exit configuration, featuring these really nice twin black powder-coat tips, fitting your 2015 or newer 3.5-liter EcoBoost powered F-150. And for all things F-150, keep it right here at americantrucks.com.
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Features, Description, Reviews, Q&A, Specs & Installation
Brand | Roush |
Exhaust System Type | Cat-Back System |
Exhaust Tip Finish | Black, Black Chrome |
Exhaust Tubing Diameter | 3.00 Inch |
Exhaust Material | Stainless Steel |
Exhaust Tip Outlet Style | Dual |
Exhaust Exit Location | Passenger Side - After Tire |
Exhaust Loudness | Loud |
Deep and Aggressive Exhaust Sound. Roush gives your F-150 a more distinctively aggressive exhaust tone through this Single Exhaust System with Black Tips. This cat-back exhaust reinforces your truck’s overall dynamics and confident stance by releasing a deep and powerful growl as you let it dash on and off-road. The Roush Black Exhaust Tips are designed exclusively for American Trucks
Optimum Performance. Squeeze more power out of your engine for enhanced driving dynamics with this Single Exhaust System. It features a straight-through muffler that allows the exhaust gases to freely flow at a high velocity, as it intensifies your engine’s power. The mandrel bends provide low turbulence, thereby increasing horsepower and improving torque. Expect an optimum performance from your F-150, whether you use it for daily driving or for rough off-roading.
Premium Construction. Roush ensures the long-lasting durability of its exhaust systems by using corrosion-resistant 3-inch mandrel-bent, 304 stainless steel tubing. This cat-back system is built to hold up well over time, sustaining its powerful performance. Additionally, the pair of 4-inch black exhaust tips brings a tough accent that attractively enhances your truck’s confident stance.
Bolt-On Installation. This cat-back exhaust system is designed for a direct, bolt-on installation by seamlessly fitting into your F-150’s factory mounting points. It includes all the necessary hardware for a hassle-free installation process that takes about 2 hours with moderate mechanical skills.
Application. This Roush Single Exhaust System with Black Tips Side Exit is intended for use on 2015-2020 Ford F-150 3.5L EcoBoosts, excluding models with the High Output 3.5L EcoBoost V6 engine.
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Fitment:
DetailsRoush 421985-BLK
CA Residents: WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov
Installation Info
Installation Time
(approx) 2 Hours
Difficulty Level:
Light to Moderate mechanical skill required.
What's in the Box
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