Well I think my cat is on its last leg. Engine power is down. And my cat sounds like a paint can with big ball bearings banging around. I ordered a test pipe and I'm gonna just remove the cat. We don't have emissions tests here. So I'll be fine. But the car is down until monday when the pipe should arrive. Next step is to remove the muffler and see how it sounds lol.
I wouldn't remove the muffler if you're gonna do a test pipe. It will be so raspy and loud, you'll hate life. When mine went bad, I actually used a HushPowerII (I think?) resonator/muffler with some flanges welded on to replace mine. It passed the visual inspection for a converter in my area and with a defouler never threw a CEL. I realize you don't have that but just an FYI.
Ah whats wrong with it? I pretty much had a straight pipe right after the manifold on my 4 banger camry and it wasn't that loud...It had a deep rumble that sounded better than a lot of cars. Has anyone gutted the stock muffler?
I haven't touched my stock muffler cause I'm afraid I'll get a terrible sound that'll piss people off (neighbors and car guys). If I do anything with my exhaust it'll be a cat back or new muffler. Just me, but you do what you want, it's your car after all.
Finally got a 1/2" Milwaulkee impact and broke loose those rusty bolts and nuts. The rear top one was seized so bad I had to sawzall it in half. I did all this to find out my cat was completely crapped out and was throwing chunks of converter down my exhaust system. I removed the cat and installed the test pipe tonight at 9pm after I got home from class. Got done cleaning up at 11pm. The exhaust is sitting next to my garage. The car is INSANELY loud with no cat or exhaust. I couldn't even get past 3k without waking the whole neighborhood. Tomorrow I will bust loose the muffler from the mid pipe assembly and shake out as much of the converter as I can. If I can't than I'm gonna sawzall the muffler open and jb weld a patch to close it back up.
Last night I got it all put back together!!!! Broke the muffler flange bolts and shook out about two lbs of converter dust and chunks. There was still about a handful of small pieces and dust stuck in the rear most baffle so I took a hole saw and cut a 1.875" hole in the back of the muffler. Got it all out and then sheared a bolt off with a 1/2" impact. Drilled it out and used a 3/8's nut and bolt. Made a copper gasket and got it all back. Sounds awesome. Nice deep rumble. Not loud. Not ricey.
Let us know if you have add a spark plug anti-fouler to keep the MIL light off. I only mention it as I have a PO420 code.
