speedz06

I have been running without catalytic converters for about 2 years.
I'm not crazy about the smell of the exhaust (especially inside the car) after making a hard pull and my wife complains all the time....so I'm ready to replace the cats. From what it looks like the oem crossover pipe is on the car and the shop at the time hacked out the cats. I'm doing this to cut down on the smell inside the car not for any other reason.

My thinking is to go with a complete X pipe/cat combo from Kooks I just dont want to buy something that might clog or have any issues later.

My question is might there a better brand or combination to consider?

Pricing/availability is important.

Not lose much or any performance.

Unreal

Any FI car runs the risk of clogging and having issues.

realcanuk

Like ^^ said, if FI cats will fail eventually. The smell can be greatly reduced with tuning. Mine is hardly noticeable now.

old motorhead

If you have long tube headers, just get catted mid pipes for your headers. If you have a stock Z exhaust, get the stock mid pipes. They're for sale just about every day in the parts for sale/wanted section.

TTZ06VETTE

This^^. Believe it or not I simply re engaged DFCO and ir made a huge difference reducing smell. There is also a table for transient fuel balance between accel/decel that I tweaked.

speedz06

Looks like I had better spend some time tuning. Yeah after I wrote this I thought about how we run fat at WOT plus the higher flow and you are right the cats will be an issue. Maybe I have some sort of exhaust leak I wish I could compare another car with similar setup.
I'll also find out what TTZ06Vette means by DFCO but it may be something I can make worse if I'm not careful!

realcanuk

If you have a cam then tuning the EOIT will make the biggest difference.

playtoy

Just my experience, I had an american racing catted x pipe on my car when it was making about 700 rwhp. It lasted +/- 15,000 miles at which point I moved up to more power (1100 rwhp) and a 3" non cat x pipe. When I pulled it off it was still in great condition and at the time I was racing anything that would pull up beside me.

My new set up is going to be about 800 rwhp and I will be running cats again. This time I have decided to do something a lot of people will might disagree with. I bought some flowmaster metalic spun cats from Amazon for $55 a piece and will be putting them in with V-Bands so that I can remove them and put in some test pipes when I know I will be beating on the car. I have no idea if they are going to last or not but if they don't they were not very expensive and I can replace them with something else. Another option is to buy a 4" cat and have it necked down to 3" so that you have more surface area for the exhaust to flow through. Again I don't know if this will work as the back pressure behind the cat will be the same but it might allow the cat to stay cool enough to not melt and not hurt performance too bad. Just my thoughts.

DFCO is Deceleration Fuel Cut Off

old motorhead

I wouldn't trust a Flowmaster cat, muffler, or anything they manufacture, to do what they say it will do. Cheap, yeah. They may last, but I'd bet they won't do much of what a cat is supposed to do. Good luck with that. I guess if they're a total bust, you're not out a whole lot of cash....just lost time and aggravation.

schpenxel

I know everyone says they will fail, and perhaps they will eventually.. but I'm still running cats on mine and they haven't failed yet. LS2 ones melt pretty easy and there were a lot of super crappy aftermarket cats out there several years ago that fried easily. I think that left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

I'm not saying there's a 0% chance they will fail if you add them back. It's very possible they do, but I understand what you're saying.. I'd rather have them and they fail and deal with the consequences than not have them. I barely ever drove the car when I didn't have them.

LS7/9 exhaust from manifolds to tips on mine. I'm sure if I did back to back to back pulls a few times I very well could melt them but I hated the smell so bad I don't care

playtoy

I understand where you are coming from, I actually will be surprised if they survive very long. I have no reason to believe that they wont work for what I want them to do. If they don't last oh well that's $100 down the drain and I'll chalk it up to a science project.(I've blown more than that in a bar on a friday night).

speedz06

I'm looking to see is the LS9 setup will fit the Z.
Seen any threads on interchangeability between models/years?

speedz06

anyone know if I can use 2013 Zr1 cats and mid pipe on my oem 2006 Z06 or if there is only slight mods needed? The OEM collector looks pretty darn good!

schpenxel

Can't imagine you'd gain much regardless. Is there anything even different aside from maybe an X pipe instead of H pipe? I can't remember.. seems like they are almost identical though.