Gentlemen,
I need some advice and practical experience regarding your choice of catalyst brand / supplier.
For a long time now I've been getting sick of driving my '95 with the off-road H-pipe and smelling like I've just finished mowing the lawn after a 30 minute drive. The better-half has complained about this issue for years, and I have to admit, I agree with her. I love the sound it makes without cats, even with the factory cat back, but I can't live with the fumes anymore. The problem is that I'm not sure which supplier to go with to solve this issue. This is becoming more important as my car does more street cruising and less track days now. Here are my experiences, thoughts, and questions given the limited number of choices:
Please let me know what you think and what experiences you've had putting cats back on your cars. I'm open to and appreciative of all recommendations!
I need some advice and practical experience regarding your choice of catalyst brand / supplier.
For a long time now I've been getting sick of driving my '95 with the off-road H-pipe and smelling like I've just finished mowing the lawn after a 30 minute drive. The better-half has complained about this issue for years, and I have to admit, I agree with her. I love the sound it makes without cats, even with the factory cat back, but I can't live with the fumes anymore. The problem is that I'm not sure which supplier to go with to solve this issue. This is becoming more important as my car does more street cruising and less track days now. Here are my experiences, thoughts, and questions given the limited number of choices:
- The stock H-pipe is not going back on. It's horrible mess of bad pipe bends and four cats. Plus, it's really heavy! I have to admit thought, the stock configuration really did a good job at cleaning up the exhaust.
- I purchased a stainless H-pipe with cats from Magnaflow approximately 10 years ago. It only lasted on my car for one summer. Besides the fact that it never quite fit right, the exhaust had that really horrible sulfur smell all of time, especially after a WOT pull. I spoke with several friends in the industry who all agreed that this was caused by low-dollar catalyst wash coats that are shy on nickel content. I ordered it new from Ebay so maybe it was a batch of seconds that someone was liquidating, I'll never know for sure. I hated to pull it because it was a really nicely constructed stainless piece, but the sulfur smell was way worse than raw HC, CO, and NOx smell. That's when I put the off-road H back on.
- BBK offers some choices in H and X configurations, but they seem kind of pricey for aluminized pipes. Have you guys had good luck with their cats?
- Bassani is another option and they are available in stainless. My biggest concern is whether or not they'll have the same bad sulfur small as the Magnalfows, especially since they're in the $650+ range. It would really be upsetting to lay out that kind of money for a premium brand and then have the farty exhaust smell again.
- Another option is to drop my off-road H and weld in some small bullet cats. This would be with the hope that at idle they clean up the exhaust enough to make stop lights bearable, and during cruising or WOT runs it won't really matter. I'm not as big a fan of this option.
- Magnaflow has some new X-pipes available for the SN95, but now they're $1000+ and I don't want to get burned by them again.
Please let me know what you think and what experiences you've had putting cats back on your cars. I'm open to and appreciative of all recommendations!