Intake/Exhaust

Redid the exhaust on the truck. Originally had a 2 chambered muffler, just swapped with the factory, thru the factory tailpipes. Cut all that off and went with 2 original 40 series flowmaster dumped, with a 2.5” pipes up to the collector. Sounds great. Nice and deep, no rasp whatsoever, and very little drone.
Ordered a Rough Country CAI too. For $150, I figured why not? I’ll put it on when I get home from offshore

 

That exhaust probably sounds mean!

As far as the intake, I'd suggest you stick with your stock intake.
At the very least, use that tube on your stock box and add a drop in filter.
Your factory box is sealed from the engine bay. The one in that picture is open to the engine and you'll be sucking in hot air and could actually lose power from it. There's lots of threads about intakes and most agree that the stock box is probably the best bet for these trucks. There are some upgrades you can do to the stock box, like the TRD airflow accelerator or SABM, and replacing the tube to get rid of the baffle, but as far as the box goes, its hard to improve on that design.

 

It sounds real good! I’m not a fan of just super loud. It’s got a nice deep tone/rumble, but when I stick my foot in it, it opens up!
I’ve read up a lot on the intakes for these trucks. I’ve run a CAI on almost every vehicle I’ve had in the last 15 years or so. F150’s, F250s, Mustangs, Taurus SHO, you name it. I figured I’ll try this one. I was actually planning on swapping just the tube and a drop in filter (friend of mine has one I can try) like you were talking about, then putting the rest on to see which I like better. I’ve read up on all the SABM mods and TRD flow tube and all. I’ll try a few combos ans see what works best.