Buying a set of cutouts

Honestly, on this particular car, save yourself the trouble and just buy and off-road H pipe (if you don't have inspections). The H pipe will bolt in with no welding and with stock mufflers will probably give you even better torque and horsepower than the open cutout after the cats. The stock mufflers and manifolds aren't bad, but just replacing the H pipe with something that flows better (and gets rid of your 6 cats!), will give you very cost effective and fun hp... and a much nicer sound.

I went with an offroad H pipe on my 97 and gained 1.5 mph at the track (so maybe 10-15hp?). I'm not just making this recommendation because I don't like cutouts. I have a 3" manual cutout on my 88 2.3 and love it. It has a turbo, so it won't make your ears bleed when running the cutout open (unlike an NA V8). I generally only open it up at the track, and run a very restrictive and quiet exhaust system for the street. Even with my SINGLE 2.5" exhaust choking a 300+rwhp engine, I only gain 2 mph when I open the cutout. Imagine the pathetic gains of opening the cutout on a sub 200rwhp car with DUAL 2.5" exhaust.

With a cutout, it will probably sound more like a junky stang with an exhaust system that fell off than mean or aggressive. Maybe with cats, it will be a bit more mellow, but if you just dump it without cats, it will be painfully loud, where you don't even want to drive the car.
Again, the offroad H is cheap. It can cost easily under 200$ if you install yourself and will make the car sound much nicer. My opinion is that ford tuned the mufflers to sound nice, and getting rid of the cats just gives it a little edge, where it isn't too loud, but has a nice aftermarket note. If it isn't loud enough, you can always throw on a catback. I've head an offroad pipe and 40 series can drive even the hard core enthusist of noise mad.

Listen to Bhuff30. If you want your car to sound like a piece of ***** then go for it. It will be loud as hell for sure but it won't sound good at all.

Parents car?

YouTube - 1996 Mustang GT 4.6 cutouts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpYOwn_ri7k&feature=related