hey guys, im from houston texas.

i got a 2004 f150 4.6l (newer model)

and i currentley have a glass pack on it, i mean its pretty loud now, ive been reading some stuff about how i could cut off some cats?,

well i was thinking about cutting ooff the pipe and like 2 cats? but would i ppass inspection? and how many am i suppose to have? and is that gonna be ****in loud? haha

 

you won't pass inspection without the main cats and if you gut them it will most likely throw a code. I remember TX being pretty easy for inspection and it's not like they take of your cats to check, hell I don't think they even have a meter to measure the exhaust gases. Not sure about the 2004 (newer sytle) but the 05+ had two main cats and got rid of the 2 additional pre-cats like the 97-03 models had which was basically 4 cats total. As long as you visible have two main cats you should be good to go no matter how loud but if you throw a code during inspection you will fail. I had a true dual exhuast on my 05 4.2l with dual red hots glasspacks and it was louder than most V8's. Have fun with the drone inside the cab, lol.

 

I live in a rural area in Tx and they could care less what your exhaust sounds like. As long as it drives fine and all signals/lights/wipers/horns are working, you're good to go. It may be different in the city though if they have all the equipment for testing your emissions and such.

 

its a federal crime to remove any emissions device from the vehicle.

That being said there are ways to do it and not to do it. If you can do it yourself in your driveway go for it, just make sure not to make a big scene about it. If you arent able to do the work yourself, call around to exhaust shops and see if they will work with you and do anything under the table, or after hours.


As for inspection, If you only remove the rear two cats that arent monitored by the truck: you will pass OB2 scanner (tight regulations), will not pass visual inspection (loosely regulated) and may or may not pass the 5 gas sniffer test in your area (tight regulations)

If you remove all cats, you wont pass OB2, visual, or sniffer test, without getting custom tunes to ignore the rear 02 sensors

 

wow. i dont think i have ever seen pat post in the exhaust forum

 

Out of the many other fields that he has a great wealth of knowledge in, he is very aware in exhausts also, just spends his time elsewhere

 

It all depends on what part of TX you live in. Most of the smaller and more rural counties don't have much of an inspection. Most will only look under there to see if there is some sort of muffler and cat. So a gutted one would pass in that situation.

However, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and soon San Antonio are all emissions coutnies now. They will get under there and look to see what you have. If the inspector is smart enough to know you are supposed to have 4 cats and you only have 2, you will fail. On OBD2 vehicles, which yours of course is, they will hook it up to the port under the dash and verify if any trouble codes or not ready codes are thrown. If nothing pops up, you pass.

In Dallas and Houston they go one step further and will hook up all vehicles to the rollers and do a standard emissions test up to 2000rpm I believe. So in that regard, even if you don't have engine lights and can pass visual, the car still needs to be in excellent condition to pass.

In any emissions county, the 1996 and older vehicles are all hooked up to the sniffer and run up to 2000rpm for a period of 60-90 seconds to verify you aren't polluting or causing any problems.

Granted thats a rare instance as only a handful of the 254 counties in TX are doing this, but its still illegal to modify any of your emissions equipment on your vehicles. Do it at your own risk, but you might want to speak to some people in your county that have modified their vehicles to see what they have done if you do in fact live in an emissions testing county.

 

well this was a texas specific question, and Im a state inspector......

Plus its not the usual, what do you think about this setup: blah blah blah

 

so basically i can remove the 2 rear cats? and wont be screwed when inspection comes around?

 

Depending on how well of buddies you are with your inspector, it depends,

 

or you could just go to another non emissions county for your sticker... I live in Ector and I know all they do here is brake and lamp inspections and, you're good to go

 

well to do that you'd have to sign a waiver that says you live in an emissions county but are working in, or going to school in a non emissions county.

technically the vehicle should be inspected in the county in which it spends the majority of its time in, which is the county its insured and registered to in most cases

 

I know of three friends of mine here in Travis County (Austin TX) who had their Vettes inspected in Bexar County (San Antonio, non emissions), got stopped by cops at one point or another and because their inspection sticker showed Bexar, but their registration and insurance showed they should be in Travis, they were given tickets and required to have their cars reinspected and pay a few pretty nasty fines.

It is not in your best interest to just go to another county. If you are going to have it inspected in a non emissions county, make sure it is registered there too. You are asking for a world of crap if you don't.

 

Damn, thats harsh. I didnt know they could tell the difference... To me an inspection sticker is an inspection sticker... Guess thats why I don't work for DPS, well that and who really wants to wear one of those mount me hats?

 

The color of the texas is different colors, they have red, green, blue, yellow etc depending on what all was tested.

Not to mention the new car 2 year state stickers are purple with a white texas.