didnt get his name, but he said the y-pipe for the 2001 max has no pre-cats in it. Said all you gotta do is screw in the 2 o2 sensors in stillen pipe and your good to go. I thought that this pipe(cal spec) had one pre cat still in it. Someone want to enlighten me on this please.

 

He is correct in saying there are no pre-cats on the y pipe, but he didn't mention that the pre-cat is attached to the exhaust manifold.

 

i asked him about that specificly. He said: you've got your y pipe, your cat and your muffler, thats it. Sounds like he was just telling me what i wanted to hear. Hmmm

 

Typical sales person. What you should've asked was, "Would I have any pre-cats after the y pipe installation?" That answer would've been more interesting.

 

you are right, i called stillen again and spoke to someone else. He said the one pre cat would still be there. He also said through r&d it would not affect the balance enough to do any harm. He also said that gutting the precat was also a n option if i wanted. Is it worth getting the cali y pipe, and gutting the other precat or just leaving the precat alone. I wont go to the extreme as to change the manifold like desert? did.

 

Yet another example of bad advice from Stillen. DO NOT GUT THE FRONT PRE-CAT unless, of course, you want your ECM to generate a Check Engine Light. And it stands to reason that removing the front pre-cat will yield exactly the same result as gutting it. So you're wise in not wanting to duplicate Desert Pearl's experiment . . . at least not yet.

 

speaking of Desert Pearl, I wonder how his work on the exhaust is progressing....hopefully, he will post an update soon.....

 

I believe he's working on the project this weekend. Hopefully we'll get an update soon.

 

Guys, I'll post this in another thread, but check out my site. My main site (the one in my sig) I can't update for some reason. Here's a direct link to my y-pipe page:

www.desertpearlmax.homestead.com/Fed_YPipe.html

I completed the install today. I am scheduled to take the car by Pro-Dyno on Monday morning for my final dyno testing. I drove the car today after I finished and didn't get ANY check engine lights!!! Take a look at the site and let me know what you think.

P.S. The dyno results page hasn't been updated yet. This will be done on Monday (providing Pro-Dyno's printer is fixed by then).

 

One more thing... I agree with y2kse on this... Do not gut your front precat. If you take a look at the following pic of the Stillen y-pipe, you'll see that the O2 sensor that used to be after the backside precat is being moved to after the frontside precat (which isn't replaced in the CA cars). This makes the ECU believe that there are still two functional precats, when in actuality there is only one. If you gut it or remove it without moving the O2 sensors like I did, you'll definitely get a check engine light. Heck, eventhough I moved the O2 sensors, it'll take a week or so behind the wheel, before I'll actually believe that even works. I drove it today and everything looks okay, but only time will tell.

 

CONGRATULATIONS DESERT PEARL !!! I honestly didn't think your mod would work, but I'm really glad it did.

I'm anxious to hear the results of your dyno test. And please post all of this info into a separate thread. It deserves to be seen by everyone.

 

Sorry, I did it again. Preview function keeps clearing my attached file. Here's the pic I was referring to:

 

Desert Pearl....congratulations.....awesome work! looking forward to dyno results.....

 

Congrats!