Rookie questions....I really want to get an x pipe, however I live in the Bay Area in California where emission rules are super strict. Magnaflow makes a 50 state legal x pipe....would the 50 state legal x pipe produce the same performance results as lets say an off road x pipe without cats??

In order to get the performance gain from an x pipe are high flow cats a must???

Please educate me

Josh

 

That depends. You need some back pressure from somewhere in the exhaust system....either from baffles in the muffler or from cats. In many instances, taking the cats off will hurt performance especially on a car that is nearly stock.

High flow cats work really well....the gains are good.

Be careful. The X Pipe may be "50 state legal" but not really. Your state or county may "require" that the car be equipped with stock exhaust components no matter what. This means you have a few options:

1 - Leave it stock
2 - Go with any x pipe you want and swap it before an emissions test. But, if you do this, you don't want to get pulled over and have the car checked....so I would say avoid the really loud exhaust systems.

Best of luck!

 

I wish i had more info but a stang owner at another site had the magnaflow x-catted in cali(dont know what part) and pasted emmisions but failed the visaul. and they would not past him. sorry i wish i had more pricise info.

 

many of the X-pipes with performance convertors will produce within a couple of horsepower of the off road x-pipes and will also be a huge improvement over the stock H-pipe with convertors. The vehicle will be louder with the aftermarket X. I believe that as long as you have convertors that will pass a emissions test and the car is within noise limits the law can't make you remove your aftermarket parts as long as they meet or exceed original equiptment specifications as per manufactor. The big brother can't force you to buy replacement parts from the factory,just like the factory can't void your warranty if you use parts that meet or exceed there requirements. A good example is oil,Ford can't void your warranty if you use another brand of oil other than theirs as long as it meets the ratings and you change it when they recommend. I would inquire with your states emissions dept. to be sure. You could always reinstall the factory pipe when your anual inspection is due.

 

Well it looks like I'll probably skip the x pipe. I'm not sure I want to mess around with the emissions stuff. Also I have a vert so its loud enough inside with just the cat back. Thanks for the info guys.

 

I have a catted x (magnaflow) its not much louder at all but flows a lot better then stock.

 

Welcome to California.

No aftermarket X or H pipes are currently legal for 4.6's here. The reason is that stock these cars come with 4-6 cats... the aftermarkets all have 2, meaning you're deleting factory emissions equipment.

With that said, it will pass the sniffer. Just not the visual. Gotta love that law. However, if your car is low enough they're not going to check. Also alot of shops just don't care enough. Or don't know enough to know how many cats your car has. They'll see the cats and assume its fine. Same with a cop who pulls you over and checks your exhaust. He sees cats and says ok.

I'm going with the SLP X in a couple weeks. I say do it, the gains are tremendous, and if you do have to swap it for an e-check every 2 years its not that much work.

 

yeah dude my car is still registered in cali. they only test your car evry 2 years or so. and usually you can go to a little smog check cert. tech somewhere in the ghetto and they will sign your paper. im from richmond and my cousin had his grand national pass with no prob even his 5.0 with dumped flows passes. ill give him a call and i'll see where he goes. oh yeah my mustang has yet to be inspected since i live out of state, military. hahahahaha. no wait im still in the military<----- :laughing9

 

Good luck with that..

 

go with the x-pipe but if your worry just buy the catted version. Untill you have a power adder the horsepower difference is not that much.