NO he wont be safe as far as a visual inspection goes, even if he retains the stock cats, if he moves them from the factory location and they do a visual check he's SOL. There is no way to have long tubes and have a factory cat location as the length of the longtubes moves everything back 6-8" more or less. The only kit that I am aware of that claims to be long tubes are dynatechs I beleve (may be wrong on the brand) and they will sell you the full kit (headers, cats, Y,) and they claim that you keep the stock cat location but they also want $1200 for the kit.

Now what I did with my truck was install the headers in my garage, and then I took it over to a friends shop who has a lift and we fab'd up the rest of the piping to add in the stock cats and litterally made it look like that was how it was suppose to be installed stock. Everything from the way the cats are installed to the way the wiring was done looks stock. I have no CEL's and everything is running fine.

If you are worried about passing emissions, first check your local laws and see how they do an emissions test, if they only do the OBDII test your set, if they do a full visual check or you just dont feel comfortable installing LT's sell them and pick your self up some CARB rated shorties or mids and you'll be fine.

 

i meant to put shorties would keep the factory position. yeah with long tubes theres no way.
and i saw that dynateach kit, seemed like a good idea but i wasnt about to pay 1200 buck plus install.

 

Man I am SO glad we dont have that BS down here

 

We just have theOBDII test here for newer vehicles. I get to test this this summer Yay!!

 

here it doesnt matter where your cats are at, as long as they are there.

 

In my county, you can't replace a cat unless an emissions center certifies that the old one has gone bad.

 

strict strict strick. i cant believe they make up rules like that. completely ridicoulus

 

I'm in good old Georgia, no tests whatsoever. My cats are back about a foot give or take, they are the stock ones and if you don't specifically know where they are supposed to be, they look perfectly normal. I even matched the wire colors when I extended them, but you will see about an inch and a half of shrink tubing where I soldered them...

 

Everything about mine look stock. Which brings up another question. How do they know exactly where 'stock' is? I've looked and cant find any markers as to a specific location.

 

Usually the welds around the cat gives it away. The factory welds are robotic, the shop welds aren't always so clean. Remember the herpes muffler? That guy wouldn't fool anybody if that was a cat!