well i ended up just taking a dye grinder and cuting a squair the length and width of the cat out, and just hammerd the combs out with a screwdriver then mig welded the plate back in. worked well, sounds good, little loss in torque, but overall, fixed the major problems, can live with the rest of it other than the check engine light, which i'll just get a O2 simulator to take care of that.