Part One: The Teardown
1. Wayne decided to tackle the cat first. He cut the intermediate pipe free at the back of the cat and the back of the muffler with a reciprocating saw. | 
2. With the cuts made, the piece of stock pipe with the muffler attached was snaked out and set aside for the time being. |
3. The front of the cat has a factory-installed clamp that makes for a good seal, but at the same time it crushed the pipe down, making removal pretty rough. Luckily, Wayne is a pro and showed that by cutting a diagonal line across the pipe. He could then peel it open with a screwdriver and remove the cat without damaging the Y-pipe. | 
Part Two: The Install
1. The MagnaFlow cat is a few inches shorter than the factory piece, so Wayne added an extension piece to the front to make up the length. |
2. The new cat with extension pipe was slid back into place and welded in solid. As I was watching Wayne weld in the pipe, I noticed he makes small little circles with the gun. He said that makes for a wider weld to help seal the two pipes together. | 
3. Here's the cat all buttoned up. At this point, Wayne cut off the factory muffler and threw it in the trash. |
4. Because the new muffler and the factory pipe are the same diameter, Wayne used this machine to stretch open the muffler to allow it to slide over the factory pipe. | 
5. The muffler was welded in place. If you look closely, you can see that all of the factory hangers were retained (arrows), saving me a little money. |
6. There it is all welded up and ready to fire. Wayne told me to climb up and start the truck so he could check for leaks. There were no leaks found, so Wayne moved to the back and welded on the tip. | 
7. While we were down in the pit, David walked by and said, "Hey, the tip is pointing forward." Wayne came to the rescue. He sat down and muscled that sucker back to an acceptable angle. |
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Tech Tip
A Look Inside
Here is a shot I got from MagnaFlow, and it clearly shows the muffler's internals. Wrapped around the one-piece, perforated stainless steel core is a stainless steel mesh that prevents blowout and deterioration of the absorbing material.
The Final WordAll and all, I'm very happy with how things worked out. The truck sounds great and runs better, and the tip looks sweet hanging out the back of the truck. I want to throw a big thanks out to David and Wayne for fitting me in their schedule at the last minute for this tech shoot.