As I have said before, I honestly think you are overthinking this and not taking some of the advice to heart.
Think about it......as long as you have been back and forth on this, the issues that keep presenting itself with what you want to do both past and present and the advice that has been given, the best answer is clear as a bell.
Let's run it down a bit.
1) You are asking for advice due to your current setup smashing the cats and want an alternative.
IMHO and the general consensus it that the factory catted h-pipe is going to be your best alternative. It was designed for these cars, whether or not it was installed in 84 from the factory.
2) You state you are not thrilled with having 4 cats when my car originally came with 1 cat.
Unless you go factory replacement for the 84 model year, any alternative will have more than one cat.
3) You worry about flow and loss of performance going with the factory catted x-pipe.
More than likely you will see an increase of power from going with it as it will help maintain a bit of backpressure on the system, which CFI cars tend to like.
4) You really want to find an aftermarket pipe that you can modify. Current shops state that certain of the bends will be hard to replicate.
Any modification to the aftermarket pipe to install aftermarket cats in will more than likely end up the same way the pipe you are trying to get rid of did. There is not a good place to modify these pipes to install cats without altering the fit dramatically. If you look at the factory pipe, both sets of cats are offset and there is a reason for that. Trying to stick a straight through cat in them is going to be a pain.
5) You are looking for a 2.5" pipe for 3" cats.
You will need to step up/step down after the cats due to the size difference. That is going to make the affected area longer and make fitment even worse.
The basic point of this is not to be rude, it is to make you see that no matter what you want to do to modify something that was not designed for the intended purpose, it will likely end in a poorly executed scab job unless time and money is not an issue.
If it was me, I would personally either use the factory catted pipe, or buy an aftermarket catted pipe and not try to scab the existing together. You will be time and money ahead, with a lot less frustration. You can always recoup some of the cost by selling your current aftermarket setup.
Connect With Us