Woke up at 7:30 this morning after going to sleep last night at 5am. It was well worth it. Ill post a review later on but for now I need to get some sleep.

Good luck on the installation to the 49 or so other people who got in on the deal.

 

Cattman what... Y-pipe?

 

received 6:45p, Thursday
installed 11:15a, Friday

 

i thought you was boosted

 

I am
what does that have to do with the subject at hand ?

 

you were boosted with a stock y pipe? or you blew your flex section? or maybe you got a 3 inch one?

 

8:00 am: I wake up and get my roommate to follow me out to Doc Roberts Goodyear, a local shop in Blacksburg, VA. Their specialty is mainly tires and brakes but I know some of the mechanics and they are very good and were happy to involve me in all decision making processes. I decided to have it professionally installed (the first mod that I have ever not installed myself) because (1) Im at school and dont have access to the tools that I would at home and (2) the job isnt hard, but tedious and I didnt want the headache.

8:15 am: Daryl, their exhaust specialist got my Max up on the lift just to make sure there wouldn't be any glaring problems right off the bat. Initially he was worried about the manifold bolts due to the fact that they were rusted to hell. He said that if he thought the manifold bolts were going to break he was going to stop but was going to try and call me if there was a problem.

9:13 am: Im sitting back at my town house and I get a call. Initially I was thinking that he couldnt get the manifold bolts off or worse broke one. Something ALWAYS goes wrong whenever I try to do anything to my car. To my enjoyment, Daryl said he was able to get the bolts off after soaking them in a anti-seize compound of some sort. He said he was concerned about one section of the Y-Pipe rubbing against the frame and told me to come check it out.

9:20 am: When I get there, the Y-Pipe was on and there were no fitment problems as far as lining up with the manifolds. There was one section just prior to the flex section that was about 3mm from touching the frame but Daryl had not yet tightened the bolts yet. He said the only way he could insure it wouldnt touch was basically to grab a crow bar and slightly bend it. I said to gauge the tension the section was putting on the frame if and when it touched.

He also showed me the old cat (which I replaced with the RT Cat) and it just looked like complete sh*t. He had to cut one bolt out and heat another to get it off. He said that by law he was required to keep the old Cat for 10 days which I had no problem with considering it looked like a chicken nugget burnt to a crisp. He said that the stock Y-Pipe was still in pretty good shape (I have a 96 with 63,000 miles on it).

10:30 am: Job is done. Daryl said the cat fit like a glove and the replacement bolts and gaskets were very good. The extra gaskets that came with the Cattman Y-Pipe were unused. The total bill was 2 hours labor or $100 even.

10:45 am: Jump in the car wide-eyed only to be caught in the midst of a carpool from a kid's soccer game or something, I felt like the guy in the Hyundai commercial. I finally got some room and just floored it. WOW! What a difference. Passing cars is almost effortless and there is ABSOLUTELY NO NOISE INCREASE WHATSOEVER. When I start my car there is this "boom" sound almost like the turbo mistu eclipses...very nice. I think my car is actually quieter. Prior to today I only had a JWT Popcharger and Im convinced my car is quieter now, maybe due to the small leak in the stock Y's flex section.

There is a slight vibration at idle and in gear shifting (I have an automatic) to reverse but the moment the car moves it is smooth sailing. As far as accelerating, there is a very small vibration when cruising at 1.5k RPMs but who cruises at 1.5k RPMs? 2k and up is perfect as far as I can tell.

Torque is up, low end is up, but at 4k is when you really feel it. Albeit Ive only had the Y and RT Cat on for a few hours, I am very happy with it, definitely worth the wait.

 

Knowledge Reigns Supreme

 

DOH! Thanks for ruining my party.

 

 

my bad dog! nice write up though.

 

Congrats man! It will get louder if you get a catback.