The 1st time my exhaust rusted of my Ranger I took a muffler man's reccomendation on running size. He let me know that he had done many, many 2.9L Rangers and that he would only put on stock or 2¼". This did feel better, seat-of-the-pants (SOTP). Next time, when that rusted off, I did not know about stainless steel (SS) exhausts or that they are worth the difference in cost, so I did the aluminized again ?.
Approximately 18 months later when that was falling apart I knew to use SS and had learned to source it from JC Whitney, Summit or Jegs. I did as much reading about mufflers as I could. I didn't care how it sounded as low as it offered a performance improvement, so this it where I was lucky. The only company that took the time to prove their mufflers could outflow strait pipe was Borla; with that, I was sold.
My 1st Borla system was put on in 95-96 on my Ranger's 2.9L and is still doing great. The Borla sound is very performance sounding, not glass packy or like a BIG V8 secretly lives under the hood, just...this is not a stock sounding engine, it sounds like a highly tuned performance engine but in a truck?
The big difference is when a performance engine is out in front of it, then it really sings. If you go to the Borla website, they have tons of soundclips. If you want more raspberries they offer that, I forget what they call it. That 1st Borla system was using just their Turbo muffler (now designated the Pro XS line), so I was very intrigued as to what the "FABLED" XR1 could sound like, so much did I wonder that I had to know. Get the XR1 unless you want the super Raspberry new Borla (ATAK).
I am right by Seattle and have no sound recordings, I will attempt to swing you with my description. Have ever heard an 8 cylinder Jaguar ..)