I can’t for the life of me decide on whether I need an offroad y-pipe or a catted one, was hoping to get some feedback on my build. I’ll be running a mild street with a small 218/224 cam and ported heads from lloyd elliot, some other goodies, and of course, lt headers. I already picked up some kooks, just need their y-pipe. It’ll be paired with my magnaflow catback. I’m not concerned with emissions as of now, just worried about the smell, sound and too much rasp:

Will an ory reek of gas, even with my small cam, mild idle? A whiff is fine here and there, but I park the Z28 in a small garage unit, and would rather not have my clothes smell like the 60’s after a drive lol. If I use a clamp system rather than welding it, would the smell be anymore prevalent? Lastly, should I expect a lot of rasp? I like the deeper tone that my magnaflow has now, just wish it was a bit louder at WOT.

How about the catted y-pipe, can I expect a sound increase from what I’m at now, stock with a catback? That’s really my only concern with the cats, I know it’ll be quiet at idle/cruise still but I’d like to get the sound a bit louder at WOT, which is why the ory is so tempting haha. Any help is appreciated.

 

An ORY will reek period....I put high flow cats on my pacesetter ORY just because I dint want the smell, I’ll sacrifice some HP to have an enjoyable car

 

if it is tuned correctly for all the mods, then it shouldn't smell too bad. the magnaflow muffler should keep the rasp to a minimum no matter if you have cats or not, i ran a magnaflow cat back on my cammed 383 with longtubes and no cats and it wasn't raspy at all, nice deep tone until you really got up in the rpm range.

 

Idk if this is true but a few member seemed to think the power level difference between catted-y pipes and ory would be minimal

 

This. I let my car with with the XFI280 cam idle in the garage, and yeah it's potent if it sits there for five or so minutes, but in stop/go driving I hardly smell it and my clothes don't smell. For rasp, I've read the issue is when how the y-pipe is joined together, and the solution is using an equal length adapter on the y-pipe. I don't have one on mine, but my y-pipe was done by someone good so rasp is minimal.

 

I doubt you'll have a ton of overlap with that small of a cam. A good tune and smallish cam shouldn't be too toxic. A good cat won't be very restrictive anyway if that's what you choose to do. There will be a slight sound difference with the cat but it's slight.

 

Ok, appreciate all the responses haha. If I were to go with the ory, would it be possible to weld some cats on later on if it ends up not being to my liking? I think magnaflow makes some that would go with the 3”...

 

Yep, I had mine welded in...no problems

 

Like PARMY said, you sure can. You can even get some small round converters. I sometimes question how effective they are with long tubes that have AIR deleted. I mean I'm sure they still do an ok job but it takes them longer to get hot enough to be as effective so keep that in mind.

 

Ok, so looks like I’ll be going the ory route and will weld on cats later if needed. However, I just found out that the M6 ‘95 Camaros came with a single cat, which has me wondering if one cat will be enough with this build? I like the idea of saving the sound and deeper tone while also reducing the smell. Plus it’d be cheaper than buying that crazy expensive catted y-pipe with two cats. I’m assuming it could be welded on just after the y-pipe? This is the cat I’m looking at: Magnaflow #59959

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mpe-59959/

 

Someone can correct me if I am wrong but i dont think the air pump runs but two minutes on the initial start up to help warm the cats up then it shuts off. I also think its why on catted Y pipes they move the cats close to the collector. Honestly I would run an ORY if it wasnt part of the inspection.

I think you want to try and keep the cat as close to the engine as you can. I dont know how your ORY is But I dont think it would work good arter the Y and it places way back from where the factory cat would have been.

 

Air doesn't even run 2 minutes but it's effective at helping warm the cats and bringing them up to temp. Yes, ideally you want the cats as close to the collector as possible.

 

thus is how I did my cats, the passenger side can go right off the header which I’m told is ideal, but had to do the driver side further back to avoid interference with the frame

 

I was able to do mine right off of the collector on both sides. My Kooks kick off 15* on the driver side so I had Spintech do up a short 15* bend for me and I placed the converter right behind. It. My converters are hollow now though. The 2 step blew them apart lol

 

What cats are those?

 

Magnaflow...high flow

 

I bought the kooks catted y pipe mine are right off the header as well


Not my garage by the way. It's my neighbors I let him use my car trailer and he let's me use his lift.

It's still up on the lift if you guys want some more photos of position and fitment let me know and I'll go take some more.

 

Was there a sound reduction once installed?

 

Not very much that I’ve ever found, especially with the small spun types.

 

I put my GMMG last year with stock manifolds and y pipe and had the Pacesetter LT and y pipe installed this year and the cats were installed at the same time so I don’t know how much louder it would be without the cats...but it’s not quiet by any means....sounds amazing. I’ll try and post a vid