This may seem like a stupid question, but i decided to ask it anyway. I am running a catback exhaust system. I at the moment cannot afford a test pipe or a high flow cat. If i can take out the cat myself and hollow it out would I see any gains. Also would the sound become deeper or would it sound ricey. BTW I live in the Bahamas so removing the cat is not illegal.

 

you dont have 50 bucks to spend?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mykizism &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you dont have 50 bucks to spend?</TD></TR></TABLE>
For real, just get a cheap one of ebay? $50 not bad

 

Hollowed out cats are gay. Why not just bypass it and throw a high flow cat on it.
I did the hollowed out cat thing once on a truck I had it sounded like crap lost a bunch of low end from doing it I will never do it again.
Oh and BTW a test pipe is not the same thing as a high flow cat. A test pipe is just a piece of pipe basically a peice of muffler tubing with flanges on both sides that bolts up where that cat would go for racing.
A high flow cat is still a cat converter.




Modified by shad at 10:00 AM 11/24/2004

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shad &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">gay</TD></TR></TABLE>

buy mine

 

it will rattle, make your car really loud....and be very annonying....i say get a high flow or if you dont care get a test pipe...

 

will a check engine light come on?

 

just because it's not "illegal" doesnt mean it's right to take off your catalytic converter, because you're such a cheap *** bastard you can't afford 50 dollars for a hi flow. What's more important to you, being not illegal, or messing up the environment in the bahamas?

 

Ok we have many trucks and tons of cars running around the island with no exhaust at all. Yea I know what i said may have made it sound like i didnt care. As for the cheap bastard thing, you do realize i live in the Bahamas so the extra shipping costs plus a duty of 52% on car parts kinda sends that little 50 dollar piece to a 100+ dollar piece kinda hard for a non employed student like myself.

 

it's not worth it.

car will sound like ****, won't be any faster.

 

a gutted cat is not smooth on the inside, if you have ever seen a hollowed cat you would know what im talking about.

it would actually be worse to use a hollowed cat, especially if you have nothing done to your car. i/h/e does not count.

you will actually lose power, and it will sound like garbage.

 

yeah a hollowed out cat is not a good idea, save up 50 bucks, otherwise your car will sound like ****

 

Ok thanks for the replies I talked to my friend who has a h22A prelude like mine who took his cat out and welded a pipe in its place. He said it made his car sluggish but it made up in top end (his words so dont bash me). Well looks like I will be leaving the cat in. Thanks for the advice and as far as me being cheap when i buy a replacement clutch that sells online for $111 turns out to be $380 by the time it lands in my hands ya kinda wanna do some things to avoid that.

 

Whoever says a hollowed out cat will lose power is an idiot. Why do you get I/H/E for more air flow? Hollowing out a cat will take out the "bottle neck" of the car. I have a hollowed out cat myself and I love it. Of course you will lose tourqe but you will gain high end hp. Why would you lose power if you let the car breath better? Imagine blowing through a 2 inch straw and then trying to blow through a one inch one. And, also when I go to the track I take OFF my piping and race open headers. The extra power gained is VERY noticeable. So, don't speak unless you know what you are talking about. Hondas race with High Rev, not with tourque. If you want tourque buy a domestic car.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Red Drag0n raWr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Whoever says a hollowed out cat will lose power is an idiot. Why do you get I/H/E for more air flow? Hollowing out a cat will take out the "bottle neck" of the car. I have a hollowed out cat myself and I love it. Of course you will lose tourqe but you will gain high end hp. Why would you lose power if you let the car breath better? Imagine blowing through a 2 inch straw and then trying to blow through a one inch one. And, also when I go to the track I take OFF my piping and race open headers. The extra power gained is VERY noticeable. So, don't speak unless you know what you are talking about. Hondas race with High Rev, not with tourque. If you want tourque buy a domestic car. </TD></TR></TABLE>

so the price you pay when you destroy a $400 OEM part, pollute the environment, and get a ticket for altering your catalytic converter is DEFINITELY worth the .5 whp you get by hollowing out a cat

that sounds like a really smart plan to make your car faster.

if you don't live in the bahamas, and don't have to pay tons of money for a test pipe that you can swap in and out for race days, or a high flow cat, why the hell would you mess up your OEM catalytic converter?

oh i know why.

RICE

 

rice? its because i dont care for my 400 dollar "cat" and if im so rice you want to set something up? i'll show u what a hollowed out cat can do and it is not .5 hp of gain you can pu theaders in with a stock cat and i will leave stock headers on there with no cat and i will flow better than you

 

hondas and acuras naturally aspirated need a little bit of back pressure to operate correctly. eliminating all of the back pressure actually makes your motor work more than it has to thus making it lose power.

look up back pressure and read up on it.

 

a hollow cat disrupts your airflow. its not as smooth as lets say a test pipe.

well looking here. i have one for sale

<FONT SIZE="1"> its in my sig </FONT>

 

I agree. It is not a good idea. Just leave the stock cat on untill you have enough $ for a test pipe.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Red Drag0n raWr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">rice? its because i dont care for my 400 dollar "cat" and if im so rice you want to set something up? i'll show u what a hollowed out cat can do and it is not .5 hp of gain you can pu theaders in with a stock cat and i will leave stock headers on there with no cat and i will flow better than you</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah, and when you have to go in for a smog check, what are you going to do? buy another cat? might as well have kept your OE cat, and bought a test pipe.

however much hp you think your getting, i won't believe you until you show me a dyno.

and however much faster you think you're going, i'll still think you're a irresponsible punk for removing the main method the car uses to eliminate a major percentage of the hundreds of poisonous gasses that exhaust fumes contain.

just so you can "flow better" when you drive to work.

i'm guessing it's not for the strip, since people that care about their 1/4 times would actually spend $50 for a test pipe. It's not for auto-x because auto-x'ers tend to not be such oblivious bastards. It's not for road racing either i'm sure...

so, why did you hollow out your cat again?

it's mentalities like yours that get me or whoever else pulled over in irvine all the time, even if we've got every carb sticker ever made. It's behaviour like yours that has the community pissed off trying to pass tons of laws to make the rest of our lives more difficult (aka the war on import tuners), and ultimately it's behaviour like yours that adds to the obvious smog problem that LA has.

sorry for the lecture, but hollowing out your cat for no apparent reason is b.s. try random tech or carsound.

 

Why dont you guys just stop with this stupid bullshit? LA is smogged up because there are just too many slimeballs in the city, the grease from their heads and thier *** stink is making the big bubble of smog around the city larger and larger.

 

ur flaming because i support hallowing cats? puttin in a test pipe is the SAME THING

 

Rice...its funny how people use the term rice when the people who design these vehicles eat rice! But any ways either way u do it, its your car who give a **** wat some has to say. dont like dont bash it ....it aint your car do wat u want to your own car and take it to the track to see the results!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by C_Civic &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Rice...its funny how people use the term rice when the people who design these vehicles eat rice! But any ways either way u do it, its your car who give a **** wat some has to say. dont like dont bash it ....it aint your car do wat u want to your own car and take it to the track to see the results! </TD></TR></TABLE>

exaclty...people on here read what they "hear" im talking from experience. Me and ALL of my buddies who have been into cars for years don't believe in back pressure. Whoever lives in socal who begs to differ can PM me and I will line up my car with yours. My car open header and your car with a cat. I will prove to you in person that backpressure is not necesarry. You run your car on a cat and muffler and I will run mine straight off of my headers.

 

Dude, you sound like a meat head. Who the hell cares if your car open header can beat someone else's with a cat/exhaust, it sure as hell doesn't mean that you are right...There are plenty of people driving fast cars that have no idea what a piston is.
When it comes down to it, just try to not pollute as much, and leave in your cat, or get a high flow one. Shiat, it's 3 hp at the MOST, and I agree with bad-monkey that all of us "ricers" get a real bad name because when we pass people in the streets with no cats, the **** smells like rotten eggs, just so we can get 3 hp. If it's for the track, fine, but you get my point.
Screw the slander that is "rice", it's bad enough that we get called that by other people, it's even worse for us to call each other that.