How much is to be gained by removing the original cat?

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Wow........what a hurtful thing to say being a lead member on this site.........😢

No cheerleader award for you...............🙈
I'm not a "lead member", I'm JAFGO, or just another f*ckin' G-body owner. But facts are facts and opinions are opinions. You opened it up for opinions, and I gave you mine. Take it or leave it. I wasn't trying to put your car down. It's just that a 350R in an H/O or 442 back then with the standard rear gears wasn't a powerhouse even when new (compared to the 260 it was, but not in the overall scheme of things). Raise your hand if you think it was....didn't think so. Put in the straight pipe and you'll get the first-hand knowledge of what I'm talking about. It's just that a straight pipe is no panacea for performance gains. If your cat was almost plugged, the maximum return is you're only going to get back what you lost due to the plugging, so you're not really "gaining" anything anyway, except what the old, plugging cat is stealing from you. A performance gain would be rebuilding your Olds 350 to 1970 W-31 specs with headers and a real dual exhaust system.

If it's plugging, by all means, get that old cat out of there. If you want the straight pipe, I'm sure it'd be a whole lot cheaper than 100 bucks. Or should be. Recall back then the big thing was buying "test pipes" to replace the converters.

Plus, I don't think anyone here really GAF about being green or most people wouldn't do the crazy things they do to their cars. But if there's a visual emissions check in your state, or if it ever gets one, and you ain't got a converter, you're not getting a registration. I know what I would do if I were going to keep the car forever. Might buy it and put it in a corner somewhere if I didn't use it right away- ace in the hole sort of thing. But I don't really care what others do to their cars.
 
Honestly if you have an original 79' H/O with all emissions equipment intact, i'd probably get a nice direct replacement cat and keep everything original looking.

That being said, I usually just make a test pipe for my stuff since they're usually hacked and or swapped.

Oh and for off-road use only, obviously. 😉
 
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Straight pipe if you are allowed. Hi flow cat if you aren't.
Anyone concerned about being "green" is hypocritical for even being on this site. These cars in original 'emissions compliant' form are miniature chemical plants by todays standards. Period.

To clarify my last post, 'emissions compliant' and 'green' are two different things. I realize that a lot of members live in areas where 'emissions compliant' is a requirement. That just doesn't mean 'green' by any modern standard.
 
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Well I deleted my post not wanting to offend anyone here............I guess it's okay for some.

Let's move on..................nothing to see here.......................
 
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Having had dealings with several old cats and cut some in half either straight pipe it if you can or get a new better flowing one like a magnaflow or just about anything performance oriented. I'm willing to bet old one is either clogged or close too it. Better yet go full dual exhaust and rumble the neighborhood!
 
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I put 2 small Magnaflow cats in front of my X pipe with a Pypes 2.5 system. Sounds real good. Thirteen years ago I put a Magnaflow dual cat kit, pipes and all on a 99 2 dr Tahoe that already had headers, true duals and K&N filter charger. The cat kit improved the trucks performance better than all the other mentioned mods combined.
 
unless your cat is plugged you won't notice a performance difference installing an aftermarket cat on a street car... :popcorn:

unless your cat is plugged you won't notice a performance difference installing a straight pipe on a normal street car.
:popcorn: :popcorn:
 
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