My cali spec 2000 Maxima GLE is throwing the 0430 code and my dealer is hitting me up for new pre cats. I figure this is a good time to spend money on an upgrade instead of throwing money away at the dealer.

I know that I can get some good performance gains and rid of one pre cat by buying a y-pipe but I don't really want to buy the other pre cat from the dealer.

I was wondering if I could just knock out the substrate in the pre cat, and if so, how hard would it be to get it completely clean?

Seems to me that a cattman y-pipe, 02 simulator, and a cleaned out bank two pre cat would have me in pretty good shape.

I would greatly appreciate any opinions from those who have done this before.

 

Your plan is fine, but to save yourself from having to gut the pre-cat, you could also look into a FED spec conversion, which would just require you to buy a FED spec y-pipe and find a FED manifold from a junkyard:

http://www.desertpearlmax2.homestead.com/Fed_YPipe.html

There are also more details of this in the How To's in the Stickies.

 

Thanks so much. I have actually been using the search function all day trying to understand the whole pre cat issue and you just summed it up with one simple link.

Maxima.org is by far the best $20 I have ever spent. You guys are fantastic.

 

Btw, I'm not sure how much you're looking to spend, but have you considered aftermarket headers as an option? They will replace the manifolds, pre-cats, and y-pipe and are typically good for an approx 20 whp gain on VQ30s. You would still have to either use O2 sims or extend the downstream O2s to behind the main cat.

You can use the search function (use the advanced search and limit the search to the 5th Gen forums) to find more threads discussing headers.

 

feel free to PM me if you want to do a fed spec conversion. I have done this on my cali spec 01.

you'll need
-o2 simulator
-fed spec manifold
-fed spec y-pipe (or the fed spec extension piece on a stillen y-pipe)

Or you can just do what puppetmaster said and get the headers

 

Not sure where in Illinois Cairo is but if they don't have smog testing there you could save your self some big bucks by going off-road pipe. (If one is even made for Nissans????)

 

What is an off-road pipe?

 

I think its a test pipe?

 

how much does it gernerally cost to convert to a fed spec?

 

for me:

o2 sim: $35 (dual output version)
fed spec manifold: FREE (4th gen fed spec engine at work)
stillen extension piece: FREE (it even comes with it on cali spec cars)
TOTAL cost: $35

 

Off-road pipe is basically an aftermarket exhaust that comes pre-bent (usually mandrel) and has no cats...Basically "for off road purposes only"....I'm fairly new to Nissan's, so I dont know the availiability for high performance mods.....Usually on American high performance cars you can add a dual "off road x pipe"......
If you don't do your own mods good luck with this one (Maybe that's why there is no market for an off-road with the maxima??)...Shops get a $10,000 fine for installing one.

 

The "off-road pipe" you are talking about is the aftermarket y-pipe that he was referring to in the first post. However, for Cali spec 00-01 Maximas, it only replaces one pre-cat, hence his question with regards to the 2nd pre-cat.