...well, sorta. My intermediate pipe is rusting, and so is my Flowmaster. The catalytic converter is fine. Here's the deal....I want to go with a 3" intermediate pipe and muffler from flowmaster....the cat is whatever the stock size is for my car. I'm also maybe possibly finally putting cheap Dynomax headers with a Flowtech Y-pipe on it...still keeping the cat(that cat alone cost me $275 bucks). Since I'll get more sound and a bit more power from a 3" intermediate pipe and muffler, I was wondering how difficult it would be to mate this to the 2.5" or 2 1/4" whatever the cat is. Alot involved or no...and is it worht the 3" pipe? I want it to be louder if possible. I know the headers will give it some tone...but I'm looking at the 3" catback system from Flowmaster...American Thunder or whatever in the Jegs catalog. Thanks for the help.

 

How does the current I-pipe connect to the cat - i.e., flange or slip fit? If it's slip fit, just go to a parts store and buy the correct adaptor and clamp or weld it together. If it has a flange on it, that's where it gets more complicated. I would cut the flange off the old I-pipe and weld it to the adaptor which you will still need. Then connect the new I-pipe.
And yeah, I would get the 3" I-pipe. You have to replace your old one anyway, and it probably won't cost much more. Besides, someday you may want to go to a 3" cat, and everything else would already be there. Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I believe the I-pipe has a flange on the end of it....the idea you have though of saving the old I-pipe flange is a great idea. I dont know who would sell a 3" adapter. I work for Advance Auto Parts...we dont stock s*** when it comes to performance stuff and ordering things is a joke. Maybe A&A or someone...i dont know. Mabye a muffler shop? I need to figure something out. But thinking about it now....I'm not sure if the I-pipe has the flange or the cat itself....i think the cat itself has the flanges and the I-pipe is slip-fit....not sure but i'm almost 100% certain that my cat came with flanges on both ends. I'll have to look tomorrow and see. Thanks for the ideas though....I'm going to go with the 3" pipe and muffler setup.

 

Your best bet would be to get a complete cat-back for your application, either Hooker, Flowmaster, Dynomax, even JC Whitney Pacesetter. You already have the "good" cat, which is 3" slip-fit inlet and 3" flanged outlet.

Same with the headers/y-pipe - '86 TPI single-cat application - the "good" stuff. I would suggest, though, that you save your nickels & dimes until you can afford the Hooker 2055's, argueably the best choice for affordable performance - and also made for your application.

 

Thanks for the advice. I found a good shop in the area up here in PA that does a good job when it comes to custom exhausts, so I'm going to go with the 3" I pipe and muffler from flowmaster. As for the headers, I'm doing those just for fun....I'm not looking to spend alot of money anymore on this car, b/c sadly, its draining my wallet left and right. It has 146,000 miles on it, and I'm not planning on keeping it on the road after another year or so. I'm planning on buying a 4th Gen WS-6 six speed to replace this as my daily driver. Although, I will still keep this car and work on it slowly to restore/severly modify it...so eventually, it will be a show car. Thats the plan. I love my thirdgen, but I love the 4th gens too.