hey guys,
quick question for you. I am ordering a new exhaust for my truck. when i am ordering, they ask me if i want to add the frnt pipe, which i assume means deleting the catalytic converter. What are the pluses and minuses of this? I am basically a moron when it comes to these things, so any help would be appreciated.
thanks!
Mike Richied

Even if you do delete the cat you may want to get the four bolt flange on the front pipe so the converter can go in and out. Totally eliminating the cat can cause problems at dealer, emissions, and possibly cause a code to set in your ECM. You also want to hang on to the front pipe and converter as they are very expensive if you need another one. Positives for some people are lower egt's, more or louder exhaust tone and turbo whistle. I had my coverter out for quite some time and have since reinstalled it to quiet the truck down a bit from the outside. The inside noise was still reasonable but outside the truck with it running was extremely noisy. The LLY's will take on a jet engine sound when at idle. Once you hear a truck witout cat you will know what I mean.

I ordered a cat-back exhaust and the downpipe (MBRP). I installed the cat-back system for now. I may install the downpipe later, but since there is a moderate chance that it will throw codes, I will probably purchase and install a "fingerstick" first. This is a device you can buy from some of the vendors on this site that can be wired into the system to bypass these codes.

If you want to go this route, be sure you order a cat back system and a seperate downpipe. If you go with the full turbo-back setup, you may not be able to put the CAT back in if they decide to do emission testing in your area.

Good luck with your setup!

I too had taken out my cat. and muffler simply by putting a straight piece of 3.5 inch pipe in their place. sounds like a jet but at cruising speeds their is little evidence of any change unless i give it a little more throttle. i did it for EGT reasons but would recommend the full exhaust when you do it

If it's sound your looking for, delete it. Like stated above it sounds like a jet engine. I removed mine and I'm happy with the sound.

So if I am looking for quick sound on a new to me truck. Can I just remove the muffler for now with no problems and have a piece of pipe welded in? If I would decide to remove the cat is this something the muffler shops wont do like on a gasser?

I was wondering if I straight piped the cat, and left on the muffler, if I would get any codes. I am willing to bet that it will lower the exhaust gas temps somewhat. I wonder how much gain you get by going from 3 1/2 to a 4 inch pipe. From the results posted on this forum, it's not that much.

KILL THE KITTY your truck will run an breathe better