Long tubes lower the tq rpm band, probably the diameter of the tubes was toooo large- shifts the power band to the upper rpm's.

With regards to dual's- has nothing to do with the situation.

 

like any body is going to listen to that crap regulation besides that lol i think every ones truck here doesnt apply to that and i know of may exhaust shops around here (johnson city) what will weld up a complete exhaust system for 300 dollars plus mufflers (if u want one of those things)... but i also think that if u r replacing all the exhaust that kinda throws the original exhaust blueprints in the garbage with the oem stuff lol thnks for the info tho thats good to know if i ever decide to put those things back on my truck if i decide to sell it in some emission controlled state like i would ever sell my lil monster

 

The Hedmans I just installed have the cat within 1/2 inch of the stock setup. I don't know if they are "longtubes" or not but they are 50 state legal. Removing or modifying emissions equipment is illegal in all 50 states, but the question is enforcement. If your state has no inspection program then you can get away with a lot. Here in California every car newer than 1974 gets sniffed every two years plus a visual inspection. I'm cool with the sniffer test, but I think the visual is BS. What comes out of the tailpipe should be all that matters..

As much as I hate the smog *****, I gotta admit that the stuff has worked. The town I grew up in is 5 miles from the nearest mountians, back in the 70's you could not see the mountians all summer long. These days there are three times as many people living there and the air is pretty clear year round. And new cars are faster (by a longshot..) than anything you could buy in those days..

 

I've got the BBK shorties on my truck and don't regret them a bit. I put them on for 3 reasons. 1) I figured the little bit of fuel mileage would be worth it. The little bit of added power is nice too, especially for scooting up short steep hills. My truck doesn't downshift as much as it used to. 2) I had a cracked manifold and figured while I was in there, why not? 3) I wanted them and they look and sound cool. I do still need to get a real exhaust. I've got $260 headers breathing through a stock y pipe and a $25 muffler. I'll probably get yelled at by some of the other guys here, but its a work in progress and I'm now officially an unemployed college student.

 

Spoke to my mechanic friend who does mostly D.O.T. work and was informed that long tubes could be installed with the cats so long as all the factory emissions equipment is reinstalled and functioning as was designed moving it forward or back does not matter as long as its performance is not altered. Long tubes and cats seem like a waste of time unless you killed the kitty...LOL

 

So the EPA website is wrong and your buddy is right?

 

I do still have the shorties on, I had problems with long tubes clearing my plow valve body. I have aftermarket cats and welded in a single O2 bung into the passenger side pipe between the cat and header. This was mostly cosmetic (for inspections), It was still throwing codes at me so I put an O2 cheater in.

 

I guess its a matter of interpertation, if you place them say 20" ( just a round figure)behind the y pipe on long tubes and that moves them 5" farther back than they were stock then yes you would be illegal but in reality they are there and you did replace them so who is going to complain......only an a$$4ol3

that' how my buddy explained it. If someone want to be worried about it or just want to be a nay sayer then they can have at it I guess.

 

You make it sound tempting, maybe one of these old timers can explain how to get by with a single cropalytic converter instead of dual. Know the regs. said something about it was legal if the single did the same thing as both. Not sure how they decide. Know my exhaust is almost shot & would like to have real headers. Not sure what the difference is between these shorties & regular manifolds. Maybe Conanski or someone else can translate the govt. speak into English.

 

No , It means as long as the cat is in the same place (under the car , in -line with exhaust, behind header, in front of muffler) . You have to think like the government. Everything they do is so vague to cover their own a$$ . You think they want to crawl under a car and measure to stock specs. No , they just want to look under there to make sure it's there , sniff it to make sure it works , and move along to the next car and next payment.

 

I actually just talked to a shop about the whole cat thing cause I dont want to pay more of the trucks worth in government exhaust BS and he said there is a LEGAL single cat conversion for the truck. Y pipe to cat and so forth. So, it is legal. Now, Cali is just a screwed up place to begin with (no offense to the residents on here) so who knows how they would react.

 

I soaked all the bolts with PB Blaster for a couple of weeks. Everything came off easy. Did the install myself, took two days of working at a comfortable pace. The dipstick actually turned out to be one of the bigger PITAs, I should have started with a new part but sometimes I get cheap/stubborn..