Before you get too bummed go to your local track. Go when it's real busy and you'll find lots of time to talk to the other f-bod owners waiting ever so patiently to do a run.

Ask them if they have headers and how they pass a visual inspection. Odds are lots of guys are running LT headers in your area and still passing emissions. How they do it is what you need to find out. Get some LT headers with high flow cats. The cats will allow you to pass a sniffer test as well as the computer test.

Now the only thing you can fail is the visual test. Some guys pass this because the state does not do a visual (like here in Illinois) or the inspectors just look for cats and don't know/care where they are supposed to be located.

But sometimes they look and do know. However some of the guys in your area might know a specific location to get tested at where they are lenient, don't do a visual when lines are long or are known to be persuaded when a fifty dollar bill accidentally falls out of your pocket.

All I am saying is there might be a way to pass emissions in your neck of the woods with LT headers. Talk to some guys at the track and you may be pleasantly surprised at what info you can come away with.

BTW pacesetter and hooker are the best bang for the buck if money is tight. Otherwise Kooks or FLP's are the non-budget choices I would consider.

Good Luck

 

What about Hooker long tubes and reusing the stock cats? This is what I was thinking about. Anybody have opinions/experience with the hookers. For 400 bucks plus a little extra to have the y pipe made you could have the stock cats and should pass emissions. What about Macs? shouldn't have problems that way.

 

true maybe not but just moving the cats to a diffrent place and you fail, im going to talk to a couple of guys in my state and see what they say about all this crap

 

I like my Pacesetters for the money. Get them coated, but forget the y-pipe. Pay $330 for the coated headers and then get an exhaust shop to do a custoim y-pipe with cars (car sound, etc...).

 

Aside from that (and I now thats a big issue if you want to make sure you pass emissions) what are the opinions on the hookers and macs. Other than the visual inspection, either one should be fine with the cars computer/emmisions sensors correct? Quality, power etc? any comments?

 

How much were the pacesetters? Whats the cost to have a shop fab up a y pipe? You can reuse the stocks cats correct? Is there a real advantage to aftermarket "high flow" cats?

 

ive herd theres a big advantage to high flow cats, cant find numbers but im sure guys will chim in, why would you want to use stock cats if your going through the header change anyways

 

To save money. Its a few hundred bucks for high flow cats right? But like you said, if youre gonna do it...

 

you can go on ebay and find carsound cats cheap from what i was told, under 50 bucks each if your lucky

 

Reusing the stock cats wouldn't be very easy.

If I remember correctly, there's a good 6" of pipe on each side of the cat(s)...and it's not straight so they're not going to just bolt right up. I believe the driver's side (maybe passenger, I can't remember) cat might actually be kinda bent (can't think of a better word) in the middle. Look at them and you'll see what I'm talking about.

So...you have to at least cut the stock pipe and flange off and weld new ones on. Also, I'm not sure about the diameter of the cats either...but I'm pretty sure it ain't 3" (like the collectors). Most likely, that's where you'd have to put the driver's side cat (right after the collector) because you don't have much room over there before the exhaust Y's over to the passenger side.

It won't be easy but who knows, you might be able to make them work.

 

yeah for all that work ill buy new ones, when i get the info i need on the headers before i do anything

 

Yeah, sounds like I'm getting new cats as well. Talked to some people and they were very happy with pacesetter LT's so right now I'm thinking pacesetters with new cats and having it all welded up at a shop. I will do the headers myself but how do I get it to the shop to get the rest welded on...?

 

This is a great thread. I'm looking for LT headers and I've narrowed it down somewhat. Good to hear from you guys all over the US.