okay so i order my cattman y-pipe in late july, and low and behold i still havent recieved it when october rolls around. so i cancel it when they still havent gotten off backorder and order from budget instead.
Friday me and my friend start to install, i had already put a lot of liquid wrench on it, and when the exhuast cooled from driving home from school we start working. we take off the plastic windshields or brush guards or w/e. we can loosen all the bolts except one, one bolt on the cat. so in the end of about 4 hours of desperately trying to get the bolt loose and off, through various wrenchs sockets, and sockets that are supposed to work on stripped nuts, and even cutting with a dremel it wont come off. so today i went to Merlin muffler and brake to have them put it on. yes i know, paying money for something simple but i had tried long enough and lost to much hair to the creeper i was using to try again.
i sit there in merlins for about an hour and they finally get to my car, pull it in, put it on the lifts and everythig is going fine. then they start to lower it, so i'm worried they might not put it on after they saw the comparison. then they just open the hood, i start to relax, but then find out they are trying to check the vin to see what year car i have, guy comes in, "what year you have?" i say 95, looks in manual " yep you have precats in the original y-pipe, i cant ut it on" so i say can you just cut off a stripped bolt i need to replace it anyway? "no cus if i do you'll just put the other on and its illegal" so now i'm going to take it to the car gurus at my high school and just cut that bolt off and get the other one on.
i think the whole precat thing was bull****. oh and he said if he got caught doing it the company would be fined $150k with such ferousity that i think he had done it before and gotten caught.
well anyway. just wanted to share my wonderful experience.

 

I took mine to a shop here in town and the guy kind of looked at it and said something about the pre-cats. I told him that the catalytic converter was still going to be there after the install, he then put the pipe in. I guess I lucked out.


The guy you took it to is right, they can get a pretty stiff fine for that. I still don't undertand why he could not just cut the bolt off. What ever you would do afterwards is on you.

 

You pretty much have to know if they follow those kinds of things going in.

The EPA fine can be pretty steep (in the thousands) for removing emissions componenets. Just move down the line to the guys who like horspower.

 

wow that guy was a go hard.. you need to torch those bolts off then

 

i had the same problem man. i went to sears bought an angle grinder. Grinded of both ends flat. Banged the bicth with a hammer a few times and it finally came off. I was so happy, you have no idea.

 

that is pretty ****ty luck man- but you're not alone. i too am having troubles with y-pipes. i bought a CE pipe through my friend (who will remian unnamed) cuz they get a discount, and im shippin back my second pipe because of fitment issues. both pipes have been off about 3/8" which i relize isnt much, but its enough that the pipe will not go on. and for how much the pipe costs and for being "custom made" for the maxima, i dont think i should have to shell out extra dough to have an exhaust shop fit it, if they even will. so i do feel your pain bro. believe me its a b*tch when you think you're gonna have a pipe and have to reinstall your stock set up, twice. hopefully everything works out ok for you though. im sure you can get that pesky bolt taken care of

 

I think that 3/8ths is awful taking into account my $160 WS fit like a glove.

 

Tell them clowns to move back to Cali!! It's not like it's running with no cat at all.

 

Go to a shop and tell them to change the bolts on the cat. It shouldn't take long nor should they charge you more than $10-15. Don't tell them anything about the y pipe. I think in the Y pipe how-to/FAQ it recommends doing that in the first place.

 

They do get fined for that - thats why I just had a shop replace the studs with new ones and didn't tell them about the new y-pipe

Bigger chains won't install it but smaller shops will

 

so wait... what's the deal? will the CE pipe fit on my 95? how about the Cattman? where would i find a ws? could someone direct me to a thread on this/sticky if poss? sorry...

 

Does anyone have a y-pipe in Cali? Any smog issues? ....stupid cali CARB ***** can go to hell!!! [/thread jack]

Man that sucks...how much did they charge you to look at it?

 

wow i guess i lucked out; i didn't have any problems from the guy that did my y-pipe, he just took it in and did it

 

This is still nothing. Finding a mechanic or a shop that would make u a simple test pipe to put in instead of the cat is the impossible task. Everybody is afraid of some Celan Environment Laws.

P.S. If anyone knows where I can get something like that please PM me.

 

omg that dude is a !phag!...i can understand not putting on the pipe but not cutting off the bolts, what a *** ... i would call him up and tell him who you were and then give it to him over the phone, then laugh and hang the phone up on him... make sure you tell him something mean cause he really wasted your time ... I HATE people like that

 

make your own

 

Well I took mine to the family mechaninc, and he b1tched about the precat thing so i just took my car to midas, the guy there was like, does the main cat stay? i was like yes, he took it in, had it done in 35 minutes. He stripped a bolt, but thats not for this thread. I read that its a violation of federal law for an exhaust shop, chain or not, to remove a main catalytic converter. fine to the tune of up to 40,000 dollars, but its not like every car even HAS precats, so this guy must just not have been too smart and blanketed the law. Oh well, as long as you get it done.

 

yeah this thread was dead, but it goes without saying that this question will continue it. jatan and rockford max, did you guys put yours on yourself? if not where did you take your y-pipe to get put on. this has been so ****ing frustrating that i just want to pay someone to do it. thanks though.

 

Took it to midas. they did it in under an hour, just make it clear that the main cat stays on the car. Otherwise get some PB blaster (its a lubricant) and a decent breaker bar (these bolts havent been touched in 11 years ). As long as you have all the necessary parts, gaskets, hangar, yada yada; You should be fine. At home without a lift it'd probably be a 2 hour job. Just for kicks start it up once with it disconnected from the cat. it sounds beastly

 

Just got mine installed on Monday. The bolts on the cat were unrecognizable, 9 years of Canadian winters don't help. They had to use heat to get both of those off. The 6 bolts that attach the y-pipe to the headers weren't bad at all. I think I have a small exhaust leak from where the y-pipe meets the cat. The gasket may not be seated properly, maybe I'll try and get another gasket from the dealership. I got a budget y-pipe btw, purchased it off of a member here in Toronto that bought it a while ago but decided not to install it. The mechanics working on my car did notice the pre-cats but did'nt say anything about them.

 

You live in Mississauga. Isn't that where Budget is located? I thought I read on the .org several months ago that Budget will install the y-pipe for nothing.
Did you check that out?

For nothing sounds too good to be true, but they might at least do it for a reasonable cost. Perhaps they can fix your exhaust leak.

 

i recently installed mine with a friend. We sprayed down the bolts with wd40 like 30 mins before going after them. used our 10in ext and deep socket 14 and got it crackin, the front 3 bolts just needed some extra strength, they came off no stripping, the cat 2 came off easy, the 3 in the middle were a bit harder, i had to buy a swivel 14 socket and that did the trick. OMG was that heavy, the factory one. We were lucky enough to put the jack underneath the pipe and lowered it.
Put the crush gaskets on the new y and put it right up with O2's in and re tightened the bolts. easy stuff. took about 2.5 hours about 1 hour went to going to the auto store for the deep socket and the swivel, 2 trips, lol

 

You're in FL, you dont count

 

Lol! A y-pipe install is a good way to get a feel for working on your car. Theres not much to screw up, and if you do its a 5 minute drive to a muffler shop away from getting fixed. Honestly if I hadnt gotten my tools stolen 3 days earlier, id have done it myself, but i was depressed. Y-Pipe = fun, cheap, and fast!

 

Yeah, I am fairly close to budget. They're about a 20-25 min drive from here. Im sure they don't install for free. Last time I called they quoted me 1 and 1/2 hour labour charge. If worse comes to worse I'll take my car to them, in the time being im going to try and fix it myself. Maybe another gasket will fix it. Yeah, I agree with Rockfordmax, working on your car is fun and you also gain some knowledge.