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Deleting the Cats...good idea or not?

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Old 09-27-2005, 03:01 PM
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Default Deleting the Cats...good idea or not?

I was thinking about going headers, but I decided to save that money towards a turbo down the road. In the mean time, I already bought the O2 simulators for the LT's...so I've already got $90 invested into this mess. I found a muffler shop that will delete the cats for $75 and add in coated strait pipes. Get this...I have to trailer the car in to get it done...so for now, I'm driving a race car only...for Off-Road purposes!!

I guess he wasn't as crooked as I thought, because he basically told me to go to hell when I asked him to delete the cats and not trailer the car in.

Basically, my question is this...will I pick up reasonable gains to justify spending $75? I'm guessing the car will sound a bit louder as well. Right now, my cars seems to be running lean, this should richen the mixture out and make it sorta ok right? If you consider most mods such as turbos or long tubes, I figure you're spending about $25 per RWHP...I figure even if I pick up 5 RWHP, I'm well under that $25 per HP mark. Thanks fellas.
Old 09-27-2005, 03:43 PM
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i gutted my cats and i love it. it does make it louder and you can deffentaly tell a differance
Old 09-27-2005, 03:51 PM
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Originally Posted by black98
i gutted my cats and i love it. it does make it louder and you can deffentaly tell a differance
I thought about gutting the cats as well, but when I jacked the one side of the car up, I looked for a minute and then found my time to be well worth more than $75 for the deletion by a muffler shop. I could definetely see it taking quite a few hours to complete!

One last thing: The muffler shop should cut the pipes on both sides directly after the 1st set of 02 sensors, correct? I noticed on the passenger side, the cat was more or less under the car where you would sit verses the driver's side where it's right off the manifold. On the passenger side, there was all this "braided" looking pipe off the manifold, and then it hit the cat. This "braided" looking pipe needs to stay right?
Old 09-27-2005, 09:55 PM
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Yeah I took mine off and sounds alot better and seems to help top end a little bit, something to hold me over till I can afford LT's
Old 09-27-2005, 10:05 PM
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I just cut the bottom weld on my cats leaving them in the car then just cleaned the stuff out from the bottom. It took a bit more work to clean out but it was much easier to put it all back together. Did it on car ramps with just a sawzall and a small mig welder.

To clean the dust out of the cats, just start the car and run it a few seconds before you weld the pipes back on. I cut through the old welds so the new weld looks almost factory, give it a year or so to rust evenly and it wont even be visible. I also hooked my o2 sim up near the computer so from under the car it looks totally stock with the wires going to the rear o2 sensors and everything.
Old 09-27-2005, 11:19 PM
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The rear O2 sensors though are going to read that your emissions are all porked up. How would that not throw a check engine light?
Old 09-27-2005, 11:22 PM
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You know what also sucks...you ran an 8.66 in the 1/8th mile at 82 mph. I was running the 1/8th mile at 83mph and COULD NOT break into the 8's. My best was a 9.014...close, but no cigar!!
Old 09-27-2005, 11:44 PM
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best i was able to do mostly stock was 8.89 on a really lucky launch I put 50-60psi in the front tires and about 35 in the back. With all the mods except the lower control arm relocation brackets I was able to get in the 8.70 range but very hard to hook up or be consistent. The converter also made me lose 1-2mph. My times ran from 9.2 to 8.7 depending on my 60ft. the brackets made launching with that converter much easier and I was able to get back to a 2.0 60ft. I can even get a 1.8 sometimes. Now with gutted cats and a gutted muffler I hope I can get a bit more out of it and get a 8.5x with nice cold air

instead of getting a o2 simulator with the plug on the end to just plug in and replace the rear sensors I got one that just had the bare wires and spliced the wires about 6 inches away from the pcm and hooked it in there. You could cut the plug off the o2 sim you have and wire it in directly like I did for a more stealth look. Here they don't do emissions testing but the car has to pass visual inspection yearly which includes making sure the cats are there and look like they are working.




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