alright, i live in columbus ohio and i'm looking for somebody to take my cats out (well i can do that with a hacksaw) and just weld in a piece of straight pipe...that's all that i want. i've called several exhaust shops (mostly the hole in the wall ones that i thought would do it) and no one will, so if anyone knows of a shop that will or if anyone has a welder and thinks they can do it (i'll pay you) please let me know.
ps don't post the shop's name here, we don't want anyone getting themselves closed down, just PM me. thanks

 

I doubt you will find any shop to do that job. It's a federal offense to remove or tamper with any component of the emissions system. They get shutdown and you get a fine of $2500 per cat you take off. Just put in some high-flows.

 

i realize it's illegal... i realize i should just go with hi flo's, but since money is an issue here with me...

1' exhaust pipe=$4 (estimate)
2 hi flo cats=minimum $90 (on ebay)

both take the same time and would give me results that i like...just one's a lot cheaper. and we don't have emissions tests in ohio and my truck won't be overtly loud so no one will ever know. thanks

 

if you cut off your cats yourself and take it to one of those shops, they can LEGALLY weld in straight pipe to seal up the exhaust. they just cant take them off

 

now that's the kind of advice i'm looking for...i'll try some shops tomorrow and tell them my cats "fell" off (i'll try some discount muffler places first. thanks again. any other suggestions are appreciated.

 

If money is an issue the huge fine should be a concern. And they can seal the exhaust with a straight pipe for a quick fix, but you have something like 60 days to make it legal again. Make sure the shop doesn't report that to anyone to protect themselves.
It's your truck and you can do whatever you want, just be careful about it. I'd hate to see you get stopped and fined thousands and be surprised. I pulled the cats on my supercharged Mustang, that's why I did the research, just so I knew what I was getting into.

 

i'm not real worried about the fine b/c we have absolutely no emissions testing, i've never had my exhaust checked for any reason while being pulled over...nothing, and the exhaust won't be too loud (i don't like really obnoxiously loud exhaust) so they should have no reason to suspect. i would just rather save a little money and get a little louder exhaust note. the way i see it this should be an el cheapo fix to a potentially $150 problem...but thanks for the info

 

One loophole for having a shop legally remove your cats is the "off road use" only one. To make that viable, you have to have your vehicle towed into the shop, either by a tow truck or by another vehicle.

From everything I gather though this will make almost no improvement in your performance and isn't really worth doing, and it will mess up your computer readings.

When cat's were first introduced they were far more restrictive, on these older vehicles I'd consider doing this, but your money and time would be far better used elsehwere on your truck.

 

Why on a 4.2 would one bother... mmmm

 

ahhh...b/c the extra .4 liters your motor displaces probably makes it freakin awesome...lol. this is my truck, this is what i want to do with it, so i really don't see what it has to do with what size motor it has in it...if i had a PSD then would i be allowed to do whatever mods i wanted but a guy with a 2.3L Ranger can't do anything but change his oil and complain about his lack of HP? i'm not really upset, just thought it was a dumb thing to say. (;