ok...something is up

i cut out my stock stopped up cat and replaced it with a homemade y-pipe. its been a couple weeks and about 1000 miles.

whats going on is really puzzling me...making me feel a little slow.

even with the topend rebuild i was getting about 14-15 mpg...now i barely get 10.

i bought this truck new and i have never seen the check engine light before...now it comes and goes.

the exhaust used to have a nice little rumble...now its a throaty headache

i need help.

 

Well I think you said you had no oxygen sensor after the cat like the 96 and later rams do (I have no idea how your truck could monitor emissions without one though?
maybe the lose of your backpressure is messing things up?
could also be effecting the temp and reading of the oxygen sensor before the cat since flow rate has changed dramatically?
I know many have this same issue on the 96 and later rams...the cat is there for a reason and the computer rely s on it doing its job and tries to adjust fuel/air mixture to get most complete cleanest burn of fuel-remove the cat the sensor readings are out of range and falls on its face trying to get back in emissions range.
but you likely know all that already...

 

i run with stright headers with no cat and milage hit hard too...

you prob getting sick of the sound as its prob louder than it was, and now getting annoying.... this is kinda why i cant wait to redo mine , im taking off the cutout and putting cats back on and putting it out the back and i hope to get more of a performance gain out of it

i never had a whole exhaust yet when i put on my longtubes on, soo i dunno what im missing,although getting rid of that y-pipe and maniflods made a big diffrence

 

i can tell you this...performance gains were actually very noticable, obviously not like heads...but noticable. i know if its an o2 sensor issue i should be running rich...but it doesnt smell like it...then again with all the air im moving through those heads i guess if it thinks it needs more gas i just burn it...im so confused...lol

 

is it possible the egr tube was affected in anyway? (not sure if you have egr)

i cut mine when i did the plenum and now the sound of it is so anoying, i first had muffler cement, but it finally blew out. my mpg dopped way down, and i have to punch it to get the tranny to shift cuz thres not enough pressure building up. (trannys fine it started doin this when the cement blew off)so ive parked the truck, and am driving my g/f's maxima. i have a new intake and TB on the way, and i need to get the stupid 55 dollar egr pipe too.


maybe something to look into though, and i know the egr goes to the headers but the sound you described is like mine. just wanted to see if you had one then removed it, or just had one in general.

 

my egr is all still connected and no leaks. the sound isnt abnormal...its just the exhaust sound that is annoying. before i had no drone...now the drone is almost unbarable.

 

I have a y pipe after the cat(which was gutted before I got it) with straight pipes and I get about 14-15 mpg's. It had a flowmaster on it when I got it and I had it cut out the day after I got it but I managed to go threw a tank the day I got it and my mpg's stayed the same and still do. I did have a noticable gain in torque till about 2k then mellows out till about 35k then it screams up until it shifts. I hear alot of people say how these trucks are so sluggish and mine isn't by any means.

 

got to be the pre cat o2...because that all we 95's have

 

im thinkin you prob messed up the o2 when removing it....is it stock? prob time for a new one anyway

 

dakotas,,, did you mpgs drop? but i was gutted then y-pipe