ok the guy that had my 2000 max before me cut out part of the y pipe, there is no cat and no intermediate pipe. the smart guy just welded in a straight pipe and unpluged the O2 sensor. my exhaust smells really bad, when i go to take off if im not over 3000 rpm then the car will die, sometimes it sounds like there is a backfire in the intake manifold. if i change my whole exhaust and get a high flow cat and the O2 sensor would this solve my problem? here are some pics of my exhaust.....

nobody has anything?

Unless he unplugged the primary o2 sensors I don't think it should effect that at all. My car ran straight pipes for almost a week.. No stalling or heavy idle. Idk why he'd put a pipe right there...assuming he was planning on running straight pipes but never got to deleting the res and the pre-cats?? That pipe was seriously pointless if his idea to get to straight pipes was what he was going for.... I've only ever seen a pipe welded in place for a res.. Not a main cat.. And there's no need to disconnect the o2 sensor since there aren't any at the cat.. Idk wth he was doing... As for the dying at 3k... I'd check everything since it appears he's ghetto rigg'd some crap already... Inspect EVERYTHING

Also I was running with a test pipe and resonator and still had precats which were enough to filter out my exhaust gases so that I didn't smell any gass smell... now with headers i'm running rich but I'm getting a tune soon.. Point being you shouldn't be smelling gas.. i also had no axle back at that time..

thanks guys but why what could be making my car run rich like that? when i have my foot on the gas either it will say at 1500 rpm or jump up to 3000, there is no in the middle. i have been trying to figure this out for a while without paying someone to look at it and im just stumped

Possibly a video?

Why put on such small diameter piping? That's smaller than facotry!!

I'd ask previous owner what the reasoning was. Maybe that would pinpoint the issue he "thought" he had when he had that pipe welded in place...

...and now you know it's not.

i can get a vid when the kids take a napp and ill post it