Do I need a Catalytic Converter or not???

[Dragon]

Really it can boil down to weither or not you get pulled over by a Rookie Officer, or one that is having a bad day.....  Here in Washington, anything over 20(now anything older than '96) doesn't get inspected, or is inspected as much, but if it came with Emissions Equiptment, then they must be in place, and functioning correctly.....  Usually they won't hassle you for not having proper equiptment,but if you make yourself noticeable, then they are more than happy to put you in your place(ie visual inspect your vehicle on the side of the road, and then write you a notice stating your vehicle needs to be State Inspected, which will also have a $150-500 Repair Fine).....

[Irish_Alley]

in MD if you make to much noise and get pulled over the cops can do the same thing "give a inspection ticket" that means you have 30 days to fix the problem. that being said when i did my exhaust on my 4x2 i had headers right after that i had punched out cats then glass packs then 45ⁿ right after that i had 3',tips 5" wide wish i had more back pressure tho you lose a lot of low end, IMO use cats it will still be loud if you use the high flow.

[bigblue09]

how would it perform if i get 2 cats and gutted them?? i really dont want to spend $160 for 2 high flow cats.

[85MudMonster]

Well, today I just got done removing the egr, charcoal canister and the cruise control (it's broken anyways). This truck doesn't have a smog pump though, that I can see. So other that the Cat it has on it, all the other emmissions crap has been removed. I'm still gonna have a Cherry Bomb Muffler on it to keep it fairly quiet. This is the muffler I'm gonna get:

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=IMM%2D7508&N=700+4294923429+4294922711+4294922710+4294891681+4294791976+4294903588+4294906129+115&autoview=sku

[Irish_Alley]

like the same set up that i had she will def breath a lot better but you lose the low end. i would if you going to punch them out run the pipes over the rear and out the back if you leave the cats intact i would then 45 them right after the cab

[85MudMonster]

okay so I just cut off my "cat" and guess what, it's already been hollowed out. well anyways I'm gonna replace it with a section of straight pipe and call it good. It'll actually probably sound a bit better cause there was still some like stuff inside it blocking the exhaust from having just a straight through flow.

[gold84gmc]

i have true dual dynomax exhaust on my truck with no cats and 2 turbo mufflers i havent gotten pulled over yet...i live in maine so i dont know what its like in the other states

[hilton850]

I also live in maine...we only have emissions testing in part of the state (not where I live), but to get an inspection sticker all of the emissions control equipment is SUPPOSED to be there and functioning no matter where you live.  My truck is a 3/4 ton with heavy duty emissions and did not come with a cat from the factory....but I did remove the AIR pump and charcoal canister, put headers on the truck and did away with the EGR that was on it and I've never had any trouble getting an inspection sticker.  The hardest time I ever got was for being too loud - custom true dual 2 1/2" exhaust with glasspacks will do that.  I'm with the others that say chuck the cats but don't make it too loud.  If you make it really loud you'll draw more attention to yourself than you want.  On a side note, I think you should have some sort of muffler (cherry bomb or whatever you like) on it to act as a spark arrestor at the very least - especially if you go with a short exhaust system dumping in front of the rear tire.