cat bypass pipes

Well I finally got the bumper cover off (the bumperetts where on there tight!). Things were looking up as I got them off and moved onto removing the bolts from my cats to the headers...snapped two of the 3 heads off the bolt (cannot reach the upper bolt). Moved onto the drivers side, snapped 1 of the 3 (didn't attempt to remove the last two). So all in all, I'll be taking it into a indy. I hope it isn't too much, as I have done much of the work already, and will drive without the bumper cover on and will pop off the muffler bypass pipes/ & tips before I hand the keys over. So labor shouldn't be too bad (I hope...) Any advise on this would be great, I'd like to just do the job myself, but oh well. I give myself a 2 out of 5 for ability to do stuff (serpentine belts, spark plugs, cat back exhaust (when not rusted on), oil changes) I can do those, when things get tricky, I don't.

Sorry for the off topic questions, but if you don't mind... What is the benefit of the bypass pipe? Does it increase performance? Do you have to get the car tuned (or computer modified) so that it doesn't trip a CEL? I know that the cats on these cars tend to rattle when they are failing and that a factory replacement is VERY expensive, is this a more cost effective solution? I can't offer any suggestions on cost, I would imagine that they will probably not give you much of a discount because you broke the bolts (before they were broken they could have applied penetrating lub / heat) now they have to extract them.

I was going to pull off the muffler on mine the other weekend, it has a rattle and I needed an excuse to put the car up for the first time and look around. Anyway, yes, those bolts are going to snap off and that's how you remove them. Not that they are meant to do that, but after years under a car that's just what they do. No big deal there, and a hammer/punch should get them out. A bigger deal would be the pipes getting stuck together, but at least that part (of my exhaust) seemed clean and seemed like it wouldn't be stuck. So I'd have at the other bolts and make them come apart somehow and then replace with new. It seems like you're more than half way there, so give it another go and see what happens. Worst case all the pipes are all stuck together, in which case put new bolts back in and drive it to a shop or exhaust place. No cats is a easy way (at the expense of the envirement and other drivers) to make the exhaust more efficent and thus create some HP. IMO

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I knew this to be true, although the benefits in modern catalytic converters is marginal and does cause your car to not be emissions compliant. Some cars are easy enough to trick via a computer modification or resistor in line with the O2, others not as much. I guess what I was asking is if the benefits of going cat-less in the 996 is worth the negatives or not.

Are you talking about the factory studs that hold the cat pipes on? If so, hit them with PB blaster, a hand held torch until the stud is glowing and hit the end of the remaining portion of the threaded side of the stud with a sledge hammer until it pushes stud out. FYI, the cat bypass pipes should be able to be installed without touching those studs. My set uses separate, non-factory hardware to attach.

Resurrecting an old one here. I�m in the process of removing the stock cat pipes from my 996 and replacing it with an FVD Brombacher cat less x pipe. I removed the nuts from the bolts that mate the headers to the stock pipe, but I�m struggling to get the bolts out. Do I just knock them with a deadblow hammer to remove? Thanks

Quotes source post: 18520649

they don't come out

Oh� so just take all 3 nuts off and then pull the pipe away from the bolts?

They dont really come out. They r pressed in knurd studs. U have to get them pretty cherry red before they knock out.

Quotes source post: 18520668

Yes

Thanks fellas