Cat or Catless?

Hello Mustang6g, I have a choice to make here. I just got the MBRP Street 3' inch catback. What is a good downpipe to pair it with and will going catless cause this car to sound like a ricer? If anyone has some suggestions for me it will help a lot! It is such a hard decision at this point. Thanks for anyone that replies and adds their insight on the subject!

CLubert said:

Hello Mustang6g, I have a choice to make here. I just got the MBRP Street 3' inch catback. What is a good downpipe to pair it with and will going catless cause this car to sound like a ricer? If anyone has some suggestions for me it will help a lot! It is such a hard decision at this point. Thanks for anyone that replies and adds their insight on the subject!

Click to expand...

I dont know what your plans are but a catless downpipe is not going to do anything performance wise unless you go big turbo. I have the MBRP race and love it but then mated a catless downpipe to it and I think it made it sound way to loud and rice, imo. I took it back off a week later and sold it.

You know there's a difference between rice and a 4 cylinder engine right? I've heard bad exhausts(rice) from I4, V6, and V8 engines. This car is going to sound like a 4 cylinder because IT IS a 4 cylinder. Embrace it man. Nothing wrong with the way a 4 cylinder sounds. If you get a downpipe upgrade, it may be even deeper sounding with more pops and crackles. But it'll also be really loud.

Ebm said:

You know there's a difference between rice and a 4 cylinder engine right? I've heard bad exhausts(rice) from I4, V6, and V8 engines. This car is going to sound like a 4 cylinder because IT IS a 4 cylinder. Embrace it man. Nothing wrong with the way a 4 cylinder sounds. If you get a downpipe upgrade, it may be even deeper sounding with more pops and crackles. But it'll also be really loud.

Click to expand...

I had a 1.8t gti before the mustang so I understand the difference between ricer and a 4 cylinder. On the gti I had a apr turboback with a high flow cat and it gave it a beautiful tone. I was looking for a setup that would give me that refined tone instead of a raspy awful sound. Believe me I love my four cylinders and I love to embrace them haha.

vogtaction said:

I dont know what your plans are but a catless downpipe is not going to do anything performance wise unless you go big turbo. I have the MBRP race and love it but then mated a catless downpipe to it and I think it made it sound way to loud and rice, imo. I took it back off a week later and sold it.

Click to expand...

That's what I was worried about haha. I'll most likely just go with a high flow catted down pipe because in jersey I'll prob get pulled over every few miles catless haha. Thanks for your reply!

I'm running a catless downpipe on my turbo-back. It depends on if your state does emissions testing and all that.
I'd say a high flow cat though. Easier on the ears.

.

CLubert said:

I had a 1.8t gti before the mustang so I understand the difference between ricer and a 4 cylinder. On the gti I had a apr turboback with a high flow cat and it gave it a beautiful tone. I was looking for a setup that would give me that refined tone instead of a raspy awful sound. Believe me I love my four cylinders and I love to embrace them haha.

Click to expand...

I had a 1.9 TDI and loved the sound of my turbo back exhaust. Mine was straight piped and it absolutely smelled awful. I'll probably never own another catless car. They are terrible for your health. Was never a fan of the motor or sound of the 1.8t. The tsi motors had issues. The vr6 sounded like pure awesomeness though. Different strokes for different folks. My Mustang sounds great. Sorry yours doesn't.

Ebm said:

I had a 1.9 TDI and loved the sound of my turbo back exhaust. Mine was straight piped and it absolutely smelled awful. I'll probably never own another catless car. They are terrible for your health. Was never a fan of the motor or sound of the 1.8t. The tsi motors had issues. The vr6 sounded like pure awesomeness though. Different strokes for different folks. My Mustang sounds great. Sorry yours doesn't.

Click to expand...

What is your exhaust setup?

I am using cpe catless with magnaflow competition catback, and also vs2 turbo upgrade. SO, basically a straight pipe all the way end with just small mufflers. I really love the pops and crackles lol

I've been mulling over going with a catted downpipe myself (to move to an emissions testing county closer to work). Even with a big turbo, I don't think the difference in hp is going to be huge between catted vs catless.

This is my first hand experience for whatever it's worth. The first mod I did was a down pipe, and I didn't really tell a huge difference, it definitely wakes up the stock exhaust and you can hear the turbo a lot more. But definitely no huge power gains with the stock tune.

A couple months ago, I got an accessport and put the stage 1 tune on my car. I drove around for a 1000 miles with the following mods: CPE IC, green filter, atp copy downpipe and Cobb stage 1. I got nervous since the Cobb manual states stage 1 is for a stock exhaust system only. I took the downpipe off and put the stock cat on. I drove this way for maybe 100 miles, and put the downpipe back on. The low end pull was significantly harder with the downpipe, but still fell on its face after 5500 rpm.

You are removing the largest restriction in the exhaust system by getting rid of the cat, and you have a pretty good weight savings by removing the cat. From my experience, the downpipe makes good gains once you get a tune. Also, do a search on this forum and you will actually find dyno graphs of before and after downpipe, there are gains to be had.

I'm currently deciding to go catted or catless. For me, I'd love to have as many pops and bangs as possible, but rather avoid the catless smell (since i have a convertible). Currently, after a bit of aggressive driving, I have to perform pedal gymnastics to get some pops here and there with my mbrp race cat back. Any one know if I could get more pops with the catback and catted dp? Or would I have to go catless? Thanks in advance!

My setup 3 inch catless to true 3 inch all the way titanium tomei single exit. You want pops, bangs, burbles gurgles and all the delicious sounds that this engine can make then this is the setup you want. Embrace the smell, its wonderful on a cold morning. On E30 its just nose candy.

Get catted if you don't want to deal with the smell.. Or get catless and you can add high flow cats later if you can't stand the smell.

-Josh

If you live in a state like me, NC, you have to have that cat. They will even fail you for a couple % under 35% tint on the windows.