A buddy of mine has a 2000 SS Camaro. He is a college student so he doenst have a lot of money to do mods to his car yet. Someone told him that you could not cut the cats off of a LS1. For what reason i have no idea! I told him that you should be able to. I have a LT1 and love the differences in prices for my mods versus his. Anyways, can someone help me with this so i can let him know whether he can do it or not. And does anyone have pics of this on an ls1?

 

He can unbolt the cats, they are sitting right next to the block and heads. Have a muffler shop make off-road pipes. They shouldn't cost much, you'll see what I mean when you look under there.

 

Your ses light will come on unless you get O2 simms. You arent hardly going to gain any power if any with a stock car, its basically pointless IMO.

 

Don't waste your time man. You get little if any power the only real thing your gaining is a little better sound. By the time you fabricate an o/r pipe and get 02 sims (so your ses light won't stay on) u may as well save a little more and get some hooker lt's

 

99 LS1 WS6,

I have heard the same thing! The stock cats flow really well, not worth taking off. Maybe a gain of a couple of rwhp. Some say that is why the SES light comes on often due to the fact that the stock cats flow like aftermarket cats.

 

Here are some flow rates:

Car Sound #93009 428 cfm
Random Tech #616806 434 cfm
Car Sound #94009 417 cfm
Walker #15147 391 cfm
Random Tech #616549 355 cfm
Stock LS1 304 cfm
MAC LS1 293 cfm


Just in my personal experience, when I had one gutted cat on my car(bought it that way) I trapped about 1.5mph higher in the 1/4 mile. When I went back to two stock cats I lost 1.5mph.

 

Thanks for all the replies people. Like I said before this is for my friend and his car. I was also wondering about that flat looking pipe that runs underneath the ls1's. Can that thing be modified or replaced with something larger for more air flow???

 

That flat thing is the Y-pipe. You can buy after market ones but not worth it unless you get some long tube headers. The best Mod is the after market airlid. Roughly 10 RWHP in 10 minutes for about 100 bucks. Thats usually the first Mod Everybody does.