I believe once your vehicle has reached 50,000 miles you can change your cats and still be legal. Also headers that have the CARB certificate can be used as well.

However local laws do prohibit modified exhaust if LE wants to cite you for it. So don't do custom work in case you get a "fix it" ticket.

 

There are two parts to the CA test.
1. Visual, to make sure everything is there, and no check-engine codes
2. tailpipe sniffer, to make sure your emissions are acceptable

Failing the visual fails the test, and they won't even test it for tailpipe emissions if you fail the visual.

As scooooter7 notes, modifications also need a CARB exemption order (EO) number. This is a one reason why I chose a supercharger that is CARB-approved.

Also, it's why I hollowed-out my pre-cats, rather than remove them. I would fail the visual if they were visibly missing. I run Magnaflow high-flow cats, and they are good enough to pass the tailpipe sniffer.

 

so how hard is it to gut the precats? I dont have a whole lot of tools at my disposal cause they were all stolen.

 

You are in Houston, and I don't believe there's a visual test in TX...

All 4 of my cats were fouled from a bad tune, I'm not sure if this will work on a good cat or not. But we just lightly tapped the outside of the pre-cats, then vacuumed the debris out. It literally crumbled apart inside. The main cats had already been cut off at this spoint, so access was easy.

 

well if you do that, make 100% sure you get every piece out. I had to use a sledge and a crow bar to break mine apart...

 

Regarding the cost of the cat replacement- I bought 2 magnaflow high flows for $50 each-delivered. A local shop charged me $30 each side to remove the cats and install the high flows. Another $30 to do the muffler, Flowmaster 40.
I think I did pretty good. Truck sounds great!

 

jeeze a total of $60 to replace the cats with the hi flos. the local shop here wanted 250, they said they would have to weld in replacement pipe to make up for the 2 cats that are gone. what kinda place did you go to? a family owned shop or a corp shop?

 

I work for F.M.C. I qas at the research building and was looking at some engines used to test the transmissions. Wondered about the cat. set-up.
I got to talking to a guy who worked there. He aparently has a nice mustang and another hot rod. He turned me on to the guy who does most of his work.
It is an actual shop. He pretty much specalizes in custom exhusts. After talking to him for a few I could tell he really knew his stuff.
A lot of the guys from rousch go to him, from what I understand.
I was also getting quotes around 200 to 250 bucks from some other places.
To be quite honest, I paid $130 when I left his shop. He told me $30 each side plus whatever else he needed to do. He put in the 2 high flows in place of the 4 with 235 thousand miles on them. He also installed the flowmaster 40 along with some pipe. He fixed the leak I had where the exhust hooks up to the manifold and looked into some leaks at the manifold on the engine. He wasn't really able to do much with the manifold leaks without possible opening up a can of worms. If that gets worse down the road mabe I'll do have him do something with them.
My sons now got the sound he wanted on his first vehicle.

Anyway........I would suggest you just keep looking around. Your bound to find someone who might know someone. Good luck.

 

i live just north of austin and we have the visual test underneath the truck and the dash check for codes


has anyone used the lightning / harley truck midpipes??? they also sell a lot of highflow midpipes for the factory manifold online

 

in md its 80,000miles. i just had my headers installed, and they wouldn't cut my cat pipes to make them match at the local shop. i had to do it myself. what a "pita" that was lying on the ground

 

I'm getting my highflows put in and the precats removed for $80......when I get the money

 

Are yall talkin about the 94306 or the 94036? The 306 is a mirror finish regular cat, whereas the 036 is not mirror finished but has the O2 sensor fitting in the rear, just like our factory cats. I'm just wondering cause I went to the magnaflow website and was tryin to find the cat yall were talkin about. The numbers are so close I thought someone may have made a typo. Just bein curious, I'm lookin into doin the same thing.

 

94306, still sitting on my backseat lol.