I have your answer. I don't know if you have been reading my posts, I have made some serious exhaust mods recently to my stock system.
The resonator that you removed is not a true resonator. If it were, it would be of a tubular design. It a two chamber muffler placed in the center of the exhaust system to take the raspy sound out of the exhaust note. Never remove the center muffler. Replace it with a tubular bullet style muffler or a glasspack. I replaced my "resonator" with a bullet style turbo muffler and it sounded deep. However, I went a step further on Friday and has the puny rear muffler hacked off as well and then had a pacesetter dual chrome tip with built-in resonator added on the end of the pipe. It's not too loud although it doesn't sound as deep as a V8 would. It does however sound awesome at WOT and is a little quicker now.
2000 Stique
2.5 Duratec
Modified Ehaust
Fast with class!!!!
