You'll be fine. I ran my car open cutout for months at a time and never even got a second look from cops (and the cops in my town are dicks), and I had headers/ORY at the time. If you get tired of the noise, or want to be able to turn the "loud" on and off from the drivers seat, you can always add an electronic cap later on as well. A 3" cutout is the size you want.

 

As a guy that wrenches at a muffler/repair shop I can assure you the answer for your budget is to take it in, have them fab the LM1 (you provide) on and let them re-route the tailpipes.

 

Cutout and delete the cats all for under $150 and you will be 3x's louder than most everything on the road.

 

see, this is what I don't understand. correct me if im wrong, but running your car without cats is illegal right? and I would think when you go to get your car inspected, it would straight up fail without cats.

Trust me, if I could, I would be running with no cats all day everyday, but my car is my dd and it has to pass inspection. period. end of story. how do you guys get around inspection? it seems every other f body on ls1tech has no cats. I don't get it. Someone please enlighten me!

 

Im sorry i didnt realize you were stuck in that situation. I live in Florida, there is no such thing pretty much anything goes down here. Where i live cops are super laid back and you could look like a mosquito truck rolling down the road with smoke and crap coming out your tail pipes and no one but the guy behind you would ever care. Idk what guys are doing where you are. Good luck my man.

 

I live right outside of charlotte, nc, so there is no way I could get away with it. the cops here are strict about it and inspectors are as well. I had a friend who didn't run cats for a long time and I never knew how he got around it. im assuming he knew the guy who inspected his car.

So yea, I cant do a no cat setup. I did get a cutout installed today. The sound is much better, but I do want something louder. I guess long tubes is the next thing to do right?

 

You can run gutted cats and pass the visual inspection. That's what lots of people do down here in Texas.

 

They either don't have a visual inspection, know someone, or have fake cats. In you case you can buy fake cats that are a strait through design, should be much better than just gutting cats. If you go with LT headers you can't use the stock cats anyway, they wont fit.
Fake cats for example:


Also you will need either a tune to turn off the rear 02 sensors, or some 02 simulators. Otherwise the check engine light will be on saying the cats are bad.

 

My 2000 had this on it when I bought it:

It wasn't to my liking, but it really wasn't THAT loud, nor obnoxious to anyone outside the car. It did drone inside the car if I had the top up, which I have like no tolerance for.

 

Now that's a hack job

 

Imo id get the LM2, this is what i got. 359 for the whole catback, 50 bucks for install. Sounds great all around. Has muffler so its legal, and all stainless with nice tips. Cant be beat.