trynpas

My roomate has a 95 Z28 Vert. He heard a rattling and was told by Meineke that his CAT was bad. They quoted him $400+ to fix it. We could obviously fix this ourselves. I have a car lift I can use.

What do we need? He said something about 02 sensors in the quote.

I told him we should go with a Highflow Cat since they are about the same price right?

Anyways,
What do we need to buy to do this? Thanks

nb 96 z

why don't u guys just take the cat off and put in a straight pipe? the o2 sensors might need to be replaced if he has a code coming up for them. if not i'd just leave em.

trynpas

Unfortunately I dont live in Michigan anymore (I see you are from Canton). There are emissions laws here in GA. We did consider doing a straight pipe until he needed to pass emissions at the end of summer.

SO, I cant find any sites to order decent Highflow cats... Could someone please list them and the best brands...

Thanks

nb 96 z

ahh i see. ok well random technology makes a high flow cat. 249.99 at thunder racing

SnakeSkinner28

Random Tech makes a direct fit cat for our cars, check thunderracing or tbyrne, i think they will come to around 230-240 shipped. Dont get a cheaper one because they wont have a flange specifically for our car and will require welding to the intermediate pipe. You will need a welder becuase the cat is welded to the ypipe and you will need to cut the old one off along with welding the new one on. You also need various hand tools, air would be great to have because those bolts will most likely be a pain in the *** to get off by hand, but not necessary. The only reason you need O2 sensors is if it is throwing a code for them. The O2 sensors for 95s i beleive are located before the cat, so unless hes getting a code he wont need them. $400 is a bit steep, if you take them a cat and pay them to weld it on a shop shouldnt take more then an hr to do that, so the bill should be no more then $300 or so.

OBE1 95Z28

Go to another exhaust shop. I had my cat replaced with a Car Sound cat for $180 (parts and labor). Of course, that didn't include O2 sensors. You can buy O2 sensors from one of the GM sources (Dal, Jason Cromer) for about $35 each and install them yourself.

DarkKnightZ28

Back when I had a cat on my car I had bought a high flow one from Summit for like 100 or just a bit more. A local muffler shop welded it in for me for $40.

SnakeSkinner28

If you get a cheap cat instead of a Random Tech one you better make sure it says direct fit. Because if it doesnt come with the the flange your going to have to weld it to the intermediate pipe too, which is totally useless.

SSmoked

Im just buying a cheap summit one for $60 and takeing it to a muffler shop. Im going to have them put my cat back on too. Cheaper then buying a $250 cat and doing it yourself.

indieaz

There is no O2 sensor in the cat on our cars (at least on OBD-I cars). If this is not a california car then it should only have pre-cat O2s...swapping the cat will have no affect on them. Even if it's a CA car with an O2 after the cat i'm unclear why you'd need ot mess with it unless you are changing the locatin of the CAT - which you shouldn't have to do unless you are welding in a cat that is not a direct fit. Even in that case id on't see why it would necessitate moving the cat. Unless of course you are throw on some longtubes...

EDIT: Calfornia cars in '95 had two cats...but were OBD-I so my statement about post-cat O2s is in error.

OBE1 95Z28

All OBDI cars had only pre-cat O2 sensors; OBDII systems added the extra diagnostics to look at cat performance (after cat O2 sensors). I ordered my 1995 Z28 in California; it's OBDI with only pre-cat sensors.

Any decent muffler shop can add tubing and flanges to mate with your existing car flanges.

FastZinTennessee

I have a Random Technologies high flow catalytic converter on the Camaro. It worked really well. Going from a straight pipe to a Random Tech gave me a more muffled but deeper growl in the exhaust and no noticeable loss of power.

My recommendation would be to get one of those in a direct fit and either install it if you can weld, or take it to an exhaust shop if you can't (a real exhaust shop, not that Meineke crap).