i am thinking about getting an electric cut out. i know where i can buy one for 150 bucks and i could put it in myself. they say it offers more performance than a cat-back exhaust. i would keep stock exhaust and just put the cut out in before the cat. also can you put long tube headers on a stock 1997 z28 exhaust? or do you have to have a special set up for it? thanks

 

You can put long tubes on a 97, or any other year, but you need a Y-pipe to match, and will have to interface it with the catback/intermediate pipe. It will not be an emissions legal setup, because long tubes relocate the cats (if you even use them). It also would not make a whole lot of sense to install long tubes and a Y-pipe, only to have it connect to the stock intermediate pipe. Why plug the exhaust system up in situations where you can't use the cutout? At our local track (Englishtown, NJ) open exhausts, including cutouts are not permittted, for example.

You will also have to decide if you want to keep the emissions connections on the headers, for the EGR and AIR systems.

 

Cut-outs are over-rated IMO. I had one on my car and all it did was make a lot of obnoxious noise and it didn't even sound that good to me. I think a lot of people think it adds a ton of power because the car 'feels' so much faster since its screaming under the car.

Like Injuneer said not much point in upgrading cat-forward exhaust to leave the factory cat-back on it. I would save your money and do everything at once...

 

alright thanks guys. so instead of spitting out money for cutout just get like SLP lm1? and use that all the time? that sounds cheaper haha.

 

I would put a set of longtubes with ORY, and a good catback exhaust before i did anything with a exhaust cutout. Dont get me wrong i love my DMH E-cutout, but i believe you will get more gains with a set of longtubes then you would with a cutout.