been looking at hi flow cats for our car and it doesn't look like much. I was thinking of making one using a magnaflow hi flow metallic cat. What do you guys think?

 

Sounds like a plan do it.

 

I figure why not, 90 for the cat, 40 for the flanges and pipe, plus a couple of bungs. 150 or 160 for the whole thing. Beats 250 and up! plus it will give me something else to do.

 

Exactly what I did. Magnaflow 59959 is the part number for the 3" metallic high flow cat.

I got under the car and put everything in place and tacked it all together to make sure it would fit. Obviously then I took it off the car to finish the welding. I built my whole catback the same way.

 

this car is keeping me busy....

 

any updates???

 

I'm wondering how effective just opening up the inlet and outlet of the stock cat and welding on 3" pipes with flanges would be. For that matter the stock muffler could be modified to have a 3" pipe lead into it after opening it up, then you could remove that flapper to make it higher flow and it might be decent. You would still want to replace the midpipe with a 3" piece but that part is pretty much straight. This is something for a person that wants to practice welding might do more than anything but It would be the ultimate stealth exhaust approach, maybe not as high horsepower as a full system but probably still improved.

 

im still waiting on my argon tank for the welding , also woundering if I should make it a straight pipe or have a slight bend like the factory.

 

make it straight. from what i have seen thus far as long as you have your hangers in the right place it wont rub on anything around it. remember to position the o2 sensor in about the same spot as stock and make it so its accessible to you in an easy way so you arent cursing someone out everytime you take it out. lol. good luck. are you going to get it dyno'd or anything to show the benefits? because this could be a great alternative to buying a $400 hfc pipe. keep us updated!

 

Every time I do something I dyno it! Like you said to see of any benifit. I will post numbers in my sig when I find my pages.

 

It's going to show the same gains as any other high flow cat available, it just costs less.

 

yeah but if for some reason it shows less even with a tune for some unforseen reason then people will know that this in fact is not an alternative. on the other hand i cannot see it being less than 5whp if it is in fact less.

 

↑↑ Seriously?

What's the difference between a pipe with a cat welded to it built by you or me, and a pipe with a cat welded to it built by Company X?

The price has nothing to do with power output. The engine doesn't know how much money you spent to make it more powerful.

 

lol ok maybe you misunderstood me. most of the time a copied design or built in theory design doesnt do as well as ones with R&D. like i said though, there are times where you just cant design something without r&d. im not saying entirely that a hfc pipe can be designed in 4 different ways and get 4 different results, im simply stating that i support DIY and hope to follow this idea soon. just hoping that the results are warranted. i do have something for you to chew on though, take a cat back for instance, why are there so many different designs? its because r&d showed results differently. im sure some were like "hey screw it lets route it like this to be different" but then again, i bet you any exhaust out there that is worth its money has had some r&d done. see where im comin from now?

 

Yeah, that's fine. I'm all about having some good R&D into a product. But you also have to look at the product being produced. Talking about this high flow cat pipe, it's literally a 2-3ft. straight pipe with a cat welded into it. Some of them have a small bend like stock for more clearance. In this case, taking that 3' straight pipe and building one that's identical will give you an identical product, regardless if you put R&D into it yourself or not.

Looking at catbacks like you mentioned, companies had different reasons for building the designs they built. Overall flow, sound, simplicity, fitment, single or dual tip, end price point...that's all taken into account when they think about making the end product. After they decide which is the most important to their product, then they start designing it. I built my own catback the same way. I wanted the best flow out of a 3" pipe with dual tips, and something that wasn't overly loud. Mine is a 3" pipe that splits to dual 3" pipes under the rear axle with minmal bends and a single large, straight through (Magnaflow) muffler where the stock resonator was. Honestly, it probably flows better than some of the catbacks that are available.

I agree that not all the copies or knock offs out there are anywhere near the quality of the actual products, but talking specifically about exhaust pipes, they're just pipes. As long as they fit, they're kind of hard to mess up.