Headers or cat delete pipes? - 986 Forum - The Community for Porsche Boxster & Cayman Owners

Which of these would I benefit the most from? I already have an aftermarket muffler.

I have secondary cat delete pipes, love it...2 hours to instal at home and no tuning....saves weight

I think you may benefit more from quality headers, but secondary deletes are cheap and easy in comparison. I think from your avatar you have a S, which means you should have your O2 sensors on your headers. This means to stay emissions compliant/have less CEL problems, you would need to get headers with cats ($$$) or extend O2 sensor wires and tap them I into your secondary cats (hassle). But, you are in Florida, so I guess if you got cat-less headers you could just tie your sensors out of the way and have no problems. Other thing to consider is drone - if your current exhaust drones, secondary deletes will likely cure that. I went with secondary deletes for these reasons. Sounds awesome, seems to pull a little harder at the top end and be a bit more responsive.

1) Yes, I have an S. 2) I have the El Cheap-O muffler that has the drone 3)And I was looking more towards El Cheap-O headers also (not sure if they would have the O2 sensor taps on them) 4) I don't want a CEL to come on.

Is anything you do to the exhaust and or intake requires a tune.....and that is usually a grand.....I don't understand why a 4k file is a thousand bucks.

Pdwight, Did you do a re-flash after your cat-delete pipes?

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Why? Mine is a UK car but has 1 pair of 100cell cats, modified exhaust and stainless ebay headers/manifolds. No tune/remap and the AFR shown on the dyno shows it running fine.

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Not after cat delete, but after headers or a larger TB I have been told you really need to.

If you go by the old Fabspeed web site....the 2nd cat deletes show more hp gain. This is with catted headers I believe. It has been noted on this forum that going with catless headers (even cheap ones) and monitoring catted mid pipes provide the best performance....provided you have the diameters correct and are not upsetting scavenge velocity. There have been issues with extending O2 leads to the mid pipes and warm up codes noted as well. This can be cured with a ROW flash. Then we come to the muffler. Apparently it flows quite well and is good for power, although it is heavy. I have mine bypassed so it is quite nice sounding.

FWIW, my 2.7 has K&N filter, 996 TB, 997 plenum, secondary cat deletes and exhaust, no retune. The computer will figure it out well enough, certainly much faster than it was. Not saying I wouldn't benefit from a tune, I'll probably get one down the road, but you don't need one to enjoy these cheap bolt-ons.

Thanks guys. So far, nobody has headers?

^^^^ Yes I have ^^^^ BUT its an Australian ROW spec (no cats in the headers) so you may not be able to replicate the same results. 1) I installed a pair of cheap Chinese headers from (you probably know the ones from Texas) to replace my standard ROW headers. Fit was OK, finish excellent and they have been on the car for over 4 years. Not much increase in performance below 3,500 rpm, but over that engine seemed to be crisper & the sound hardened. Note: I spent quite a bit of time matching up the headers to the cylinder head and gasket. 2) Then a year later I fitted the cat delete pipe from the same supplier - again seat of pants dyno gave another slight improvement, but sound was wonderful over 4,000rpm.. Note II: Recently removed the cat delete pipes as the heat from them damaged my driveshaft CV rubber boots. 3) Refitting the standard pipes altered the torque: standard = better torque below 4,000rpm, cat delete pipes improved torque over 4,000rpm. 4) No drone with either combination. Looking at the awful headers /cat combo fitted to the US cars, personally I would try the matched headers first.....

Thanks for the info Steve. I did mention I'm trying this on the El Cheap-O plan, right. a good set of headers vs the Chinese ones are big $$. I'm thinking I may get the results I want (slight hp/torque boost and lose my drone) with just the cat delete pipes. Anyone else having trouble with the heat and their cv boots? Maybe with the cat delete and 4" U/D pulley I may see 10 hp increase...

Get the cat deletes and the easy seal clamps. I think that will give you what you want. I have not done the UD pulley but it is on the "list" of things to do. I Don't have an issue with the boots/CV boots. Search Results

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I have the same setup you are thinking about doing - cat delete and 4" U/D pulley. No issues so far and about 10 hp sounds about right.

No heat problems here - less heat, in fact. Trunk doesn't get hot after a long drive like it did before pipes/muffler swap. Maybe the pipes were too close to the boots on Steve Tinker's car? Have they been redesigned since, maybe? Mine are Circuit Werks, so different brand.

Steve, very useful to have a recommendation for inexpensive alternative parts: "cheap Chinese headers from (you probably know the ones from Texas)" Don't be shy, please tell us the name of the company? Was it this guy? Top Speed Pro 1 Performance Porsche Boxster 2 5L 97 99 Performance Exhaust Header Headers Long Tube Runner | eBay Steve confirms "yes" & they fit and have the O2 sensor holes.

I purchased Cat Deletes from Top Speed Pro. They have a special offer to forum members. Originally Posted by delubozparts Hi Don, Yes Bruce had the same Test Pipes on his Boxster, we do offer the same deal for 986forum members $159.99 Free Shipping. You can send Pay Pal payment directly to [email removed] to place order, please make sure include a side note stating for 986forum.com Test Pipe purchase. Thank you for Business & Support ! John We just received New shipment for the Porsche 986 Boxster Test Pipes in 50mm piping about 2" Special Offer for Members, only 10 sets of each First come first serve basis. Boxster 2.5L 97-99 List Price $169.99 Member $139.99 Free S/H 48 States Boxster 2.7L Boxster S 3.2L 00-04 List Price $189.99 Member $159.99 Free S/H 48 States. Cat Bypass (Test) Pipes Please PM direct for Order instructions, Thank you ! Che @ Top Speed Pro-1

I have the circuit werks cat pipes too. Easy assembly, all hardware included. No complaints so far.

Top Speed (I believe it's also the Che exhaust that is referred to on this forum) is the one I got my muffler from and he's the one I'm going to get my cat deletes from. I love the muffler, no problems in 2 years and love the sound, I just wanna get rid of the drone. Those headers Gelbster posted from ebay are the ones I have also considered. Excellent price but I'm not sure if they are set up for the O2 sensor.