Not to hijack the thread, but I was thinking of cutting out my cats and filling it in with straight pipe. I imagine this might be a bad idea? Is the computer going to throw a fit over this?

 

maybe 5 HP

 

It will throw a code for O2 unless you do the fouler trick. Then there are inspections, if you have them, you will fail. Then trying to sell a truck with tampered emissions controls.

 

like said above, yes it is a problem...


you also lose low end torque when you do that too

 

The PCM will quickly detect the the missing cat and within a few hundred miles it should go into "limp home" mode". Definately lower power at that point.

There are O2 cheater boxes that be aquired on ebay and installed. This will fool the computer but I don't recommend them because I've never heard anything good about them. They might work for awhile but no guarantees. On a race vehicle, sure. On a street truck, they will probably fail at the first opportunity. The bigger issue is that your truck is no longer street legal, cannot pass inspection and becomes unsellable (my opinion).

Removing the cat will not cost you any low end torque based on the exhaust pipe size and stock cam. However the max gain you might see is only 10hp. If you gain 20 - 30hp your current cat is clogged and then yeah, you would see a huge difference.

You can purchase a Magnaflow cat and y-pipe from Amazon for 288, shipping included. It is a simple bolt-on, anyone with minor skills and tools can install it. This is the route I went when my cat got clogged and was heating up red-hot. I recovered my lost power, my acceleration is excellent and my highway mpg is 18.7 highway. Your milage may vary

Be aware that you can easily you can sell your old OEM cat for $60 - $75 which really helps to defray the initial replacement price of $288..

 

Camry ? Hard to hate anything that can get good fuel economy.

I've debated on selling my full size van because of the poor fuel economy, but nobody wants a 29 yr old conversion van, everyone wants new flashy stuff these days.

 

Shoulda traded it when they had the cash for clunkers thing going on....

 

Sadly, IMO thats why we have so few Dodge vans left. I believe they had to provide proof they destroyed them to get the cash..