legacycentral bbs

Hi,
I'm having some noise in the rear area of my exhaust and was wondering if the thing closer to the engine from the muffler was a catalytic converter or just a resonator? Can it be deleted and simply replaced with straight pipe? Would this have legal ramifications, and would it effect performance?

Thanks

I'm guessing your talking about the cat. You certainly can replace it with a straight pipe, but it most likely will not pass emissions. It would be less restrictive, and probably a bit louder. The effect on performance probably wouldnt be noticable. I have 3" TBE, with 1 resonator, but I don't have to pass emissions, so its great for me

I know what a typical cat looks like, do our cars have two from the factory?

Yes there are two cats on the non-turbo cars

O, I was thinking it was a turbo for some reason. So ya its really up to you what you wanna do with it. None of us can really promise that youll pass emissions without a replacement though...

Ahh Michigan, no emissions testing here. Now to get the thing off. Honestly, I'd rather keep it stock if I could find replacement parts, but I'm not down to spend the same money I spent on the entire car for some exhaust work.

yea, exactly my point. You can find a used one, if you feel its worth the trouble...

finding one that is worth putting on your car that is.

This guy http://www.mufflerexpress.com/ made me a stainless mid-pipe without a cat (put a resonator in place) for ~$80. John is his name, and he's a hell of a nice guy. He also made me the stainless intermediate pipe, and I'm going to have him make me the tailpipe to which i will weld my muffler of choice (all stainless). I told him that people on the board would probably be interested (especially at that price for mandrel-bent stainless) and he said he'd definitely make more for whoever gets in touch. His pipes were direct fit with my system, very high quality OEM duplicates, but you can get larger pipe too. If anyone is interested, email him (mufflerexpress@bellnet.ca) and tell him I sent you from the boards, he says "he'll help out."

I was about to write a review on them anyhow.

In your original post you asked about legal ramifications. It is illegal to remove a cat on any street car whether you have testing or not. Whether you encounter anyone could possibly give a crap, is another story.