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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 05:31 PM
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Default No cats?

I've had my headers on for about 3 weeks now and yesterday my engine started throwing a code. It's not sputtering or acting weird. I'm pretty sure it's an O2 sensor. I have a 3 inch x pipe with high flow cats. I want to cut the cats off and just have the O2 sensors tuned out.

Can anyone give me some pros and cons to this??

Thanks a lot.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 06:48 PM
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Default no cats

There is a by pass for the o2 sensor, I too am looking to see who has this by pass. I bought this for my 99 but cannot rember from who. Need to buy two for the front o2,s.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 06:54 PM
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If you remove the cats you will get a fuel smell that can be hard to tolerate. You won't get any performance gain from running without cats. You can't tune out the front O2's, they are needed for the fuel system to operate correctly. You can tune out the rear O2's, which many people do with no ill effect.

You best solution lies in the tune, not butchering your exhaust system. Of course that's just my opinion.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 07:07 PM
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Default no cats

Originally Posted by Mark C5
If you remove the cats you will get a fuel smell that can be hard to tolerate. You won't get any performance gain from running without cats. You can't tune out the front O2's, they are needed for the fuel system to operate correctly. You can tune out the rear O2's, which many people do with no ill effect.

You best solution lies in the tune, not butchering your exhaust system. Of course that's just my opinion.
I agree you should have your cats on the car and I do have them, I still got a code stating there was a problem. I cannot rember the code, I installed these o2 bypass sensor and it fixed my problem. I just cannot rember where I bought the by pass.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 07:47 PM
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St. Jude Donor '08-'09-'10
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Originally Posted by smiley callender
I agree you should have your cats on the car and I do have them, I still got a code stating there was a problem. I cannot rember the code, I installed these o2 bypass sensor and it fixed my problem. I just cannot rember where I bought the by pass.
What you are talking about are O2 simulators, referred to as SIM's. They have been illegal for some time now and you can accomplish the same thing in your tune. The car should have been tuned when the headers were installed both to maximize their benefit and to ensure the car was running as it should.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 08:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Mark C5
What you are talking about are O2 simulators, referred to as SIM's. They have been illegal for some time now and you can accomplish the same thing in your tune. The car should have been tuned when the headers were installed both to maximize their benefit and to ensure the car was running as it should.
Thanks Mark, all makes sense but am having no problems and having a blast with my long tube headers.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 08:42 PM
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Originally Posted by Mark C5
If you remove the cats you will get a fuel smell that can be hard to tolerate. You won't get any performance gain from running without cats. You can't tune out the front O2's, they are needed for the fuel system to operate correctly. You can tune out the rear O2's, which many people do with no ill effect.

You best solution lies in the tune, not butchering your exhaust system. Of course that's just my opinion.
I've heard differently from quite a few different people saying that cats are restrictive and rob horsepower.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 08:45 PM
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You have high flow cats. They are not restrictive. You might gain 1-2 horsepower from removing them, and I think that's a liberal estimate. It would be easier to just lose some weight (either you, or the car) to get that advantage.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 09:02 PM
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get the rear o2 sensors tuned out... your probably throwing po420/po430 codes for cat efficiency below threshold... the aftermarket high flow cats do not satisfy the computer like the OE ones....

you would have more of a fuel smell with no cats, and would prob only pick up a couple of HP running no cats, as stated above....

or find some rear o2 simulators to replace the rear oxygen sensors and to get rid of the codes...
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 09:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Sick C5
I've heard differently from quite a few different people saying that cats are restrictive and rob horsepower.
Those people either were not talking about C5 Corvettes or they were mistaken.
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Old Jun 24, 2010 | 10:53 PM
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The CATS, (at least the H-pipe with the pup-cats) are more restrictive than you might think. I have two H-pipes, a stock unit with the all four cats intact, and a modified version with not cats for auto-cross and track days.
With the stock exhaust manifolds and no other modification than the off-road h-pipe and a dyno tune, my completely stock MM6 LS1 produced 338 RWHP & 349 RWTQ.
I'm sure the tune had much to do with the power this car makes since the car was tuned by a reputable supporting vendor but I do not think it was responsible for all of the nearly 30 RWHP above what you normaly see on a 6-SP LS1.
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Old Jun 25, 2010 | 04:39 AM
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Originally Posted by Mark C5
Those people either were not talking about C5 Corvettes or they were mistaken.
They were talking about C5 corvettes and given that they all have owned multiple Vettes, I think they might know a thing or two.
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Old Jun 25, 2010 | 07:08 AM
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You can set the front o2 sensors so they will not set a code. You can also remove them from the fueling process if you run speed density.
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Old Jun 25, 2010 | 08:04 AM
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Originally Posted by Sick C5
They were talking about C5 corvettes and given that they all have owned multiple Vettes, I think they might know a thing or two.
Do a search here and you will find hundreds of posts on the subject by hundreds of people who have owned multiple Corvettes and have found little to no gain. They also might know a thing or two. Of course not me, I've never owned a Corvette and know nothing.
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Old Jun 25, 2010 | 10:23 AM
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Originally Posted by Sick C5
I've heard differently from quite a few different people saying that cats are restrictive and rob horsepower.
the stock cats are not restrictive when running factory - or near factory - HP. If you mod with heads-cam and/or blower... then they can pose a problem.
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Old Jun 25, 2010 | 10:29 AM
  #16  
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Originally Posted by Sick C5
I've heard differently from quite a few different people saying that cats are restrictive and rob horsepower.
maybe stock cats & pups but not High flow cats.
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Old Jun 26, 2010 | 12:05 PM
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Originally Posted by ipuig
The CATS, (at least the H-pipe with the pup-cats) are more restrictive than you might think. I have two H-pipes, a stock unit with the all four cats intact, and a modified version with not cats for auto-cross and track days.
With the stock exhaust manifolds and no other modification than the off-road h-pipe and a dyno tune, my completely stock MM6 LS1 produced 338 RWHP & 349 RWTQ.
I'm sure the tune had much to do with the power this car makes since the car was tuned by a reputable supporting vendor but I do not think it was responsible for all of the nearly 30 RWHP above what you normaly see on a 6-SP LS1.
I believe the original poster is talking about Hi-flo cats behind long-tube headers. Nothing to do with stock h-pipes.
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Old Jun 26, 2010 | 04:34 PM
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Originally Posted by fdxpilot
I believe the original poster is talking about Hi-flo cats behind long-tube headers. Nothing to do with stock h-pipes.
Factory cats are higher quality than the aftermarket units these days. The term "high flow cat" is marketing hog-wash in my opinion. I've read several post where individuals with the so called high flow cats report experiencing uncatalyzed exhaust smell from their cars, kind of pointless to add them don't you think?
Adding any component to the exhaust system wheter it's a muffler, resonator or high flow cat will increase exhaust back pressure.
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