Smog equipment removal. Yes or No.

[1981suburban]

Mine, cats and all is going in to the scrap man!

Where it can be reincarnated into a Chinese wrench, which is just as useless. lol

 

[CSFJ]

I keep thinking about doing this to both my trucks. Both run great, and the emissions stuff is all present and connected. But I really like the cleaner look of the engine bay, and they really are just obstacles to maintenance, but I have a hard time justifying it because they're not causing any problems.

 

[smoothandlow84]

Increased power and fuel mileage too. The cats are restrictive.

 

[Georgeb]

Increased power and fuel mileage too. The cats are restrictive.

Yes they are. Mine had two cats in the single exhaust. I cut them both off stuck a 3" dynomax on the Y- pipe and sent some 3" pipe out the side ahead of the rear wheel. It sounded great and ran really strong for a stocker. Unfortunatly at highway speed it was just too loud so I had to get somthing a little quieter. Still breathes good for a big ol work truck!

 

[flyboy1100]

So here is a semi related question.

My current exhaust is factory manifolds, some sort of Y to a single rusted out cat to just a few feet of pipe. It isnt loud at all, which is great!

Have a wee o five engine, if i were to redo it, would i need muffler? I dont have one now?

 

[friscobob]

The cats may be worth a penny or two, check with your scrap buyer.

 

[MadOgre]

So here is a semi related question.

My current exhaust is factory manifolds, some sort of Y to a single rusted out cat to just a few feet of pipe. It isnt loud at all, which is great!

Have a wee o five engine, if i were to redo it, would i need muffler? I dont have one now?

You could maybe get away with it depending on how anal your local noise police are ??? But you should run a full length system if you do. The longer your exhaust system the quitter it gets. A cherry bomb resonator will work too. The Y pipe really helps with the low end torque on the 305.

 

[MadOgre]

I don't like the smog stuff it puts carbon rich exhaust gases back in to the motor and is hard on the motor shortening the life of the engine in exchange for cleaner exhaust gasses. The system is a whole though. Don't take the smog pump off with out taking the rest of the system off. I had a friend just take the belt off and it did not idle rite and popped out the exhaust just off idle. When you do the headers ditch the whole system cats and all. If you don't have some its pointless to have any.

My 350s always go non smog and are always very clean inside. I think running the PCV system from the base of the chrome air cleaner helps too. As that makes sure that it always has lots of clean filtered air to ventilate the crank case with. No tiny chrome filters to get gummed up and never changed because it slips your mind. Every time the air cleaner is replaced, so is the one for the PCV system, by default lol

And how on earth do you pretty up a smogged 350 ??? Not to mention that your maintenance costs are reduced as well.

 

[flyboy1100]

You could maybe get away with it depending on how anal your local noise police are ??? But you should run a full length system if you do. The longer your exhaust system the quitter it gets. A cherry bomb resonator will work too. The Y pipe really helps with the low end torque on the 305.

Well, right now i have a 1/2 length exhaust as it rusted off about 2ft after the rusted out cat......

Cheaper the better for me, guess i dont care if i do duals or not as right now it is a single.

Would also love to someday drop an ls or 350 into it, but at this point probably not this truck

 

[Georgeb]

Here's mine.