At the end of the month I am going to be working on my exhaust. I'm getting the armor coated pacesetter headers (my dad's going to port an polish them), I'm going with the pacesetter monza dual exhaust, and hone out the intake manifold (also my dad). I wanted to replace my CAT either way because I might as well do it all, plus there is a small dent in it robbing me of horsepower, but I was wondering if the performance CAT is worth getting instead of just a replacement???

 

honestly, youd probably notice little to no difference by changing out the cat.

pace****ter header, and pace****ter catback exhaust eh? i ran that for a while. hated the sound

 

I think the sound of the exhaust is the best part. The header isn't the best material but, it is among the best in power gains for the Neon (it's recommended). The cat-back part isn't recommended. I don't think the cat-back will give u a gain at all (w/ basic mods). Pacesetter's quality is just far from the best. It's worth the money though (not that expensive). I'm thinking about switching my cat-back to a Borla.

I doubt u will get a performance gain by changing the cat. A cat is a cat.

 

eh, say what? heh. it may be one of the best in terms of power gains when compared to other short-tube headers.. but ALL the long and medium tube headers will outperform it.

 

Yeah well I'm not just doing basic mods. This car is going to be with me forever. I also looked at a different exhaust. It's the Vibrant. It's stanless steel muffler and I'm going to get a stanless steel pipe bent to fit my car. The pipe is going to be 2.5 in so I'm going to get an adaptor to fit the 2.25 pipe on the muffler and I'm also looking at a different header.

 

Like I said, the Pacesetter header has a great performance gain (I recommend the armor coated one). If u want the best, go w/ Borla for the Neon.

 

Yeah I am going to be going with the armor coated no matter which header I want. The problem is that the Borla doesn't sell it as dual exhaust. I know it's an awesome exhaust system and it's garanteed for life, but I'm really picky lol and that's why I want to get the pipe from the CAT to the Vibrant muffler stanless steel because that's the best you can get.

 

They are better than stock, but not by much.

 

if its the dual-look you are after, i would skip the vibrant personally. its heavy, and doesnt flow all too well... so, id look around for another muffler that has the dual outlets if thats what yer after. the flowmaster 80 is ok.. but a tad raspy for my tastes in the upper rpm.

why get pipe bent for your car? just get the dynomax 2.5" piping thats already pre-bent and fairly cheap at around $75 or so..

 

There are a number of dual-look mufflers you could go with, pretty much anything that will fit on a Camaro will fit on the Neon just fine. None of them flow as well as a quality straight-through muffler, not even the Flowmaster. And no one worth their weight in exhaust fumes is going to believe you are running a true dual exhaust on a four-banger.

If you are going to do the 2.5" piping, just get the piping itself for $80 from Howell or Summit, like mentioned. I'd avoid the PS catback, particularly where you live - rust city. I used to live in Norwich, and a friend of mine up in Mass. just had his PS setup finally rust through a last week or so. With the 2.5" piping, you'll need an aftermarket 2.5" cat if you want any performance gains - I can dig up the dyno charts if you like, or you can nicely ask Vitor (www.neongoodies.net) and he'll be happy to show you that the 2.5" cat-back showed zero gains anywhere in the rpm band with the stock cat as compared to the stock DOHC piping and the stock cat... The stocker has a 2.25" outlet and that ridiculous kink where the O2 sensor is.

The PS header is certainly not the best out there as far as reliability or preformance. I'd certainly take the Mopar unit over it, it just costs 2-3 times as much... And any of the long-tubes will beat it anywhere in the powerband. That said, I use a PS header (that has been ground down and rewelded) on my SOHC, and one of the handful of N/A SOHC's in the 13's is running a PS header (and full interior!).

Best of luck!