The other day, i noticed an interesting rattle comming from under my car somewhere, on deceleration of engine speed... so i crawled around down there and came across my problem in an interesting way, i was trying to tighten the bolts holding my y-pipe on to the hooker headers (thinking maybe they were loose or something) and i smacked my head somehow on the cat, and it made one hell of a noise, the same rattle that i'd heard before. I then turned my attention to it unbolting it from the y-pipe and bringing it down that extra inch or so to look inside, and nothing special caught my attention. I stuck the breaker bar in and the screen is able to be pushed back a half inch (though pops right back to its original position)... is this normal?, is my cat going out? it sounds more like there is a brick loose inside the casing, but as far as i can tell, the screen is all that moves. the car has 83000 miles, and i figure, eh its time to replace the cat

but then i started looking, and there is no emissions testing in my town so i figured why not get a test pipe, i could fab one up, but would reather buy one that isn't a bunch of welds and the like.

My question is this, does anyone recommend for or against a test pipe? I know about the backpreasure thing and i am running a flowmaster muffler out back, it does have a cut out, but i never open it.

Can anyone help?
thanks

 

I would remove the cat(s).

 

Put a Dynomax bullet muffler in place of it, that's what I did. I'm running Hooker shorties and a spintech exhaust. Keep the rectangle flange, shape one end of the bullet muffler to fit it, and order a male ball flange end from rksport for the rear. This way it bolts right up and can be removed if needed. I wish I had took pictures during my install, which was only a few weeks ago. Overall I'm very pleased, it's not that loud at idle and cruising, but when you hit it you can tell. Not quite as loud as a loudmouth but with alot more tone. I think I've got about $60 in mine including the VHT 1500 degree paint that I put on it.

 

It sounds like a chunk of the honeycomb type catalyst is bouncing around in there. Probably a matter of time b4 it clogs up and your car will bog then not start at all. If you don't have emissions then get rid of it. You can put a test pipe in there.
If you already have a muffler on the back, why put one in place of the cat?

 

The dynomax is a straight through design and calms the sound down from a test pipe. No more loud raspiness I've heard people complaining about. I guess I just wanted something that not many people have.