I'm hoping someone can help with this. I took off my muffler and cat-back pipe from my "parts" car and repaced it with a very "holy" pipe and no muffler ( I needed the mufler for a different max) It drove home noisy but strong and smooth. Now today it seems to have a bad miss and backfires some under acceleration. Sputtering power. All cylinders are firing at idle. Could it be that sensor attached to the exhaust up by the y-pipe is sensing something wrong and trying to compensate? Can it be diffused or disconnected or something? Do I need to put a good pipe/muffler back on?
I'm trying to sell this thing in running condition so this is not a timely occurence for poor performance. Any help would be appreciated.
Robin

 

Depending on which pipe is bad you can affect the running of the car as well as the o2 getting "contaminated" which would also cause running problems

 

So can I bypass or disable this sensor or what if I snip the wire? Worse trouble? Thanks.

 

Even if you bypass the O2 sensor, that will only fool you ECU. Your car might still run like crap if you crapped out the wrong pipe. Might want to fix it very soon if the car is going to be on the road.

 

you can't "bypass" the o2 it's one of the critical sensors for your car to run close to right.