Mission = Increase gas milage on my RAM Hemi

OK guys, I have a lot info here so grab a cold one - appreciate your feedback.

First off I cant find an article I believe that was in Hot Rod that gave some pretty in depth engineering that went into our stock exhaust systems.

I read some other threads that reflect what I remember and that was that the restrictive stock exhausts will actually give you better gas milage then some aftermarlet loud freer flowing systems, because the back pressure and noise cancelling resonator, etc. are all tuned for the truck running at 1,800 / 55mph to 2,300rpm / 70 mph.

Also on the Cold Air Intakes (CAI) and exhuast systems - if you look at the dyno sheets supplied from the ones I looked at - the horsepower and torque gains are at 5 grand ...who runs their turck at 5,000+ RPM? Most of the dyno sheets I've show either worse or little or zero gain down in the 2,000 rpm range...where we cruise at on the highway.

On my Camry, I jerry rigged a cone air filter (CAI) myself using that cheap dryer aluminum vent tubing, a piece of PVC pipe to adapt a large cone filter I bougth at Auto Zone.

Also on the Camry, I wrapped the stock header exhaust all the way down past the engine compartment (this took me about 6 hours and trashed my bare hands with the fiberglass cloth cooper impregnanted insualtion tape / cloth (I bought 2 1" and 2" rolls)....use gloves!

The air cleaner mod got me about 1.5pmg and the exhaust wrap got me 1.5mpg for a total of 3mpg gain. I was getting 27MPG NOW GET 30MPG...that's adds up to lot of gas money savings...

Now on the Hemi the stock log exhaust manifold can't be wrapped...so thinking about gettting headers and wrapping them...

The exhaust insulation tape keeps the engine compartment cooler (I have not acutally checked that with a temp gage but it makes sense...but at highway speeds ...maybe not much difference with the air flow through the grill...... but where I think I gained the mpg was in the winter on starts, because the high "rich" idle would come down faster because the exhaust heated up faster by insulation exhaust tape keeping the heat in thereby heating up the O2 sensor....and hotter tubes help scavenge the exhaust like soldering the solder runs to the heat....exhaust gasses get pulled out more so with hotter header & down tube....intake air is cooler in traffic jams... just my thinking and some of what I've read on other blogs...

Back to the RAM exhaust. The stock Y pipe tube that comes over from the driver side bank is manufactured with a indent accross the whole length as it passes by the transmission pan...a pretty big indent and a longer pipe comparted to the right side / shorter run to the Y connection...., system has a resonator after large log muffler..why did they put that indent in the Y pipe only on left / onger side?

The 2008 RAM Hemi air box and filter if you visulaize curling it up it looks big enough to have same surface area as a cone CAI, so I went with a K&N stock replacement filter, but my little jerry rigging mind had to help out so I ran aluminum dryer vent tube tie wrapped to the front of the plastic inner fender well curved down open to the front of the truck a bit, to scoop the air then ran the tube up to / right before the stock intake box's intake (somewhat square) tube to help get more cold air to the stock intake. I have not driven it yet to check mpg,,,,will let you know if it make a differance...

Wonderring if its cost effective to get a programmer/chip?

And YOUR EXPEREINCE on exhaust system mods / headers.

I had my last truck for 16 years so I plan to have some pay back time...but want to hear from you guys on any thing that I'm missing before making a big investment on best products etc...

Also on my last Truck V6 Magnum Dakota., I put a Gibson CAT back system but it was a bit too loud for me (headache inducing after 10 miles).

My Hemi is so quiet - real nice on long drives (I got 22 mpg doing 55 to 60 all highway) no load no tow...so on after market exhaust, I could handle a little more noise but do not want to wake the nieghbors (or my wake my wife up)....so thinking maybe I need to stick with the stock exhaust cat back, and just get headers and wrap them for maybe a 1mpg increase with k&n air filter...that would be 15-17 to 17 19 mpg...well worth it over the long hual especailly if gas goes back to $4.

also thinking a hood scoop would allow heat out save under hood components...especially in traffic jams in the summer ....just don;t know if I could cut into that new hood to make a scoop functional....does anyone make one with a remote flapper to close - to keep rain and the varmints out..? Is this worth it?

Any feedback will be appreciated, hope my info helps you.

Craig