Hi guys,

This spring when I put my firebird back on the road, one of the first things I need to do is the exhaust. It's an 87 Formula with a 5spd and LG4 engine. It has the stock midpipe from 1987, stock manifolds, the muffler that the previous owner had on it is blown, and the cat is currently removed with a lame piece of pipe welded in place. In MA, we have emmissions on cars 85 and newer, so I'm afraid I need to put a cat on, unless I can just throw one on temporarily (if so how would I do this?) I've heard these cars have more power without one so I'm really reluctant to put one on.
The main part of this relates to the cat...I was wondering if I can get a catback to hook up to a car without a cat and how I would go about doing this? Or should I just forget the dream and nice, throaty sound of not having a cat and get a factory cat to hook up a catback to? Also, is there a cheaper alternative for a performance exhaust system if I'm NOT going to have a cat? Thanks,

Steve

 

you have a lot of options depending on how much tome and money you want to spend. The entire exhaust from the manifolds to the tailpipes on the LG4 is less then desirable for performance, hence the low horsepower. A full 3" system with headers would be the best, but it sound like you don't want to spend a ton of money. You could keep your manifolds and y-pipe, and put on a good high-flow cat and a mandrel bent cat-back with a loud muffler like a magnaflow or flowmaster and get a good sound. It will probably sound very similar to your old setup with no cat and a quiet muffler.

89 Transam GTA, a few bolt ons

 

Hey there, I felt your pain a few months ago, for I also have an 874mula, with the LG4, I replaced my exhaust with a Dynomax cat, and a Dynomax cat-back system, really improved the performance, didn't feel as sluggish, also, the cat-back was $199, and the cat was $119 at Advance Auto Parts, that was a few months ago down here in VA. However the Dynomax muffler really isn't any louder than the stock, so I replaced it with a Flowmaster=oh yeah...great sound.
Now for the $$, I must say the best mod I did was Edlebrock TES headers/y-pipe(get them coated if you ever get them), man those REALLY livened things up...If you have any other q's email me at CGCBandit@aol.com

 

I took my T/A in to a shop and had a Borla Exhaust system installed. I decided to keep the single exhaust but opted for the 3" Stainless pipe with a high flow Borla Cat and muffler.

I can pass emmisions without any problems and have 3 times as much flow as the old stock exhaust and with one hell of a mean tone.

If you want it to sound right and be legal, Borla is the way to go.