Catless - Longtubes or Stock manifold?

[BoostedBen]

Hey y'all, just curious. Have any of you done test on FI cars with running LT's catless compared to just keeping the stock manifolds and doing a cat delete?

Pro's/Con's? Worth/Gaines? Is the sound difference relatively the same?

Just curious, I'm in the market for purchasing LT's, but, getting some side info that just deleting the cat's will get me near the same sound and numbers.

Thanks!

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[Jay-rod427]

Longtubes might... might pick up a small gain over cat deletes, but imo for the $ and labor time deletes are the way to go. It's not like the stock manifold is an old sbc ram horn manifold. It's a finely tuned shorty header already.

 

[BoostedBen]

Longtubes might... might pick up a small gain over cat deletes, but imo for the $ and labor time deletes are the way to go. It's not like the stock manifold is an old sbc ram horn manifold. It's a finely tuned shorty header already.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I could use all that extra cash towards plenty of other things.

 

[SolarFlare]

I like my catless longtubes.

 

[Roh92cp]

Long tubes offer a unique sound over the stock manifolds, and in my opinion it's just amazing to hear. I just went through this and considered cat deletes as well, but in the end I dove in and decided I wanted the long tubes. I did the Kooks with green cats and it was loud as hell, especially on cold startup. I then cut the green cats out and welded in 12" resonators in place and it was even louder, fun but obnoxious for sure. The cat deletes will also be loud without a good mid resonator setup. The last thing that made it in my opinion perfect was adding the Borla resonator. The gains for cost or HP for $$ is not the reason to go long tubes for sure, but man does it sound good.

 

[Jeff's FRC]

The last thing that made it in my opinion perfect was adding the Borla resonator. The gains for cost or HP for $$ is not the reason to go long tubes for sure, but man does it sound good.

Details on resonator and location? I've got Stainless Power catless longtubes into a Corsa Sport catback and I'd love to tone it down some...

 

[SVT-DADDY]

Long tubes are going to make more power, and it's more under the curve than peak. However, I just installed cat deletes and the power difference is very noticeable.

Install wise the extra work that comes with cutting the stock cat off the header, beating the pipe round, and welding on the flange made me wish a couple times that I just got long tubes.

For me it comes down to emissions, with my set up I can bolt up the stock cats in 20 minutes and get through emissions. In my state stock cats in the stock location are the only way to guarantee a pass.

Which ever direction you go I'd highly recommend either the magnaflow Tru X or Borla resonator, unless you like LOUD!

 

[ahl395]

From what I've read headers will only gain around 10whp over cat deletes. To me that just is not worth the extra cost (for both the parts and for the labor if you can't do it yourself)

 

[BoostedBen]

From what I've read headers will only gain around 10whp over cat deletes. To me that just is not worth the extra cost (for both the parts and for the labor if you can't do it yourself)

Thanks, and thanks everyone. That pretty much sums up what I was thinking. The money definitely isn't worth the minimal gains, I could use it towards a new clutch, suspension stuff, or even upgrading my gen2 to a gen3 vmp blower. And hell, at the end of the day if I'm not happy, I can still just go ahead and buy a set of longtubes.

 

[erikkire18]

selling my KOOKS catted green LT's. They are in the bolt on section

 

[TripleB]

Is it possible to do cat deletes or straight up long tubes on Whipple tune and not have issues? I don’t want the engine light and I like the Whipple tune a lot.

 

[ahl395]

Is it possible to do cat deletes or straight up long tubes on Whipple tune and not have issues? I don’t want the engine light and I like the Whipple tune a lot.

If you're not using cats you will need the rear O2s turned off in the tune. If not, you will get a CEL.

 

[olaosunt]

Long tubes offer a unique sound over the stock manifolds, and in my opinion it's just amazing to hear. I just went through this and considered cat deletes as well, but in the end I dove in and decided I wanted the long tubes. I did the Kooks with green cats and it was loud as hell, especially on cold startup. I then cut the green cats out and welded in 12" resonators in place and it was even louder, fun but obnoxious for sure. The cat deletes will also be loud without a good mid resonator setup. The last thing that made it in my opinion perfect was adding the Borla resonator. The gains for cost or HP for $$ is not the reason to go long tubes for sure, but man does it sound good.

I don’t know about the sound of headers anymore to be honest .
I loved the sound of the catted kooks on my 2005 GT with M90.It made 420 rwhp and I thought it was the bomb back then.
I also loved the sound of the catted dynatech long tubes on my 11GT500. But at about 700 rwhp it melted the cats . it was way too raspy catless even with the multiple resonators I ended up welding in .
The same headers never sounded as nice on my 12 GT (with and without cats /resonators. Way too “Tinny” and I swore I would never do headers again but ended up with them on my 15 KB car. Same thing and way too loud and I must have at least 3 sets of resonators on them now to tame them down to the point I can tolerate them

In contrast the stock headers on my Hellion TT sound much better (solid sound and no tin/rasp )and not too loud (I know the turbo’s muffle the sound ) until I open the cutouts in the mid pipe .
Lol
I swore I was going to keep this 18 as stock like as possible and to be honest it’s the best sounding stock coyote motor I have heard .
I know when I start pushing the whipple I will have to get rid of the cats but I would really hate to mess up the sound again with long tubes .
I think I will try cat deletes this time (never had them ) with the stock resonator or a magnaflow true X resonator .
If I end up with headers it will be the kooks ( I think beimg mid length may why they sound better ) with the “legs” so I can reuse whatever resonator I have .

 

[robwlf]

Is it possible to do cat deletes or straight up long tubes on Whipple tune and not have issues? I don’t want the engine light and I like the Whipple tune a lot.

you can i been researching and they make a o2 extension that goes on the end of the o2 then bolts to the cat delete it will still read the flow but wont throw the code.. i want cat deletes also but i dont want to spend money on a tuner, and tune just yet

 

[Roh92cp]

Details on resonator and location? I've got Stainless Power catless longtubes into a Corsa Sport catback and I'd love to tone it down some...

The Borla 60561 resonator was amazing a cutting down the volume, and that was replacing MBRP 3” 16” Long resonator tunes. I welded everything up and had to do a little fab work to get the Borla to meet the MBRP 3” exhaust pipes. Also you can see the 12” resonator welded in place of the green cats. My green cat after 3 years of us was failing.

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