I'm only interested in whether the cat itself is capable of passing the sniffer.
not worried about the CARB sticker right now.

 

I used to like it too !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdXWQOoUCus

But honnestly, the car slighty lost some HP in you only look the maximum power, not the whole power curv itself, we're actually testing the 16th version of our remapping, it helped a lot to give a sense to the catless pipe and we found some nice gains in the high RPM's zone, ignition mods was a lot helpfull too in addition for unleashing the beast...


Ok, the poney beast, it stays a gentle RX8 !

I don't know anything about the emisssion's test in USA, so i won't try to say anything about it. ^^

 

How would the Catless midpipe take away HP because of flames? If im reading that correctly it wouldnt matter because if you had a CAT installed it would just slowly start to clog the CAT. Catless rotaries throw flames, its just how they are. They dont loose hp from it, any hp that is lost would be from bad tuning obviously, a catless midpipe just frees up some hp by reducing backpressure... Im not sure where the connection of flames and a catless midpipe = hp loss... unless obviously bad tuning, yet I know you dont even have to be tuned to throw flames, my friend is stock besides an exhaust and midpipe and he throws flames so...

 

I still got a catless pipe, the same on the video, but now i do not have any more flames, or very smaller ones, since we've modified the map and the ignition.

The trouble is the way the car will react when you modify it with a cat-delete pipe, the more flames you got, the worst your ignition's quality turns to, ( generally ), on modern cars every thing with the electronic gestion is more complicated than before, in my mind, specially on cars like the RX8 wich are really intolerant with some mods, with the race pipe, most of cars running with a stock map will adapt and run richer, this is ruining the gain or the most part of it and sometimes it can reduct the max power in the high rpm, my english is too bad to allow me to explain very well, but the gain is not where you think, that's why on those stock maped cars, in my mind, a sport cat will run better most of time.

And yeah, flames aren't a sign of a RX8 running nicely, but one more time, it can be different with each car, with the time, we are thinking than the earlier ones ( 2003/4 ) accepta little bit more easily those mods, after 2006, like my car, looks like the stock PCM ( not sure it's the good term in english ) isn't really able to adapt alone to a racepipe without remaping the car, maybe something related to the version of the PCM loaded in.


But don't worry, i'm not talking about losses of 30-40 HP lol, it's just a "perfection" point of view, i like cars tuned perfectly, the "ricer" phantom " lots of mods/flames/sound and little gains " affraids me a lot.

 

So removing a restriction from the exhaust leads to a loss in performance?

 

I didn't say that, maybe did i missed the things i wanted to tell you then or maybe should you have read the whole answers, but by the way you have to consider the whole power curve and not any max power point alone.

if you can't run a dyno day, then just give a look at you car's performance times on a long exercice ( we practice on 50=>150 KM/H most of time ), some cars had a loss ( mine and others ), some don't and then have a better result, don't forget there are some changes in your car's gestion after the mods, this is not a strict science and we're no more in the 90's with easy cars to modify, this isn't so simple and it's not all about the exhaust's restrictions now.


And honnestly, i like cools "lol" pics most of time, but sometimes, it's just better to try to argue and simply talk with words and i do not think we needed that one, but... Well... At least this is colouring the topic.

 

i'm not picking on you for disliking a midpipe, lots of people dont like them. But to suggest removing the cat would somehow cause issues to the car running richer or reduce power at higher RPM's just doesnt bear out with any dyno chart i've seen.

 

i just had my 8 smog checked last month. granted i still have the oem cat, but they didnt even bother checking the cat visually though. however they did pop the hood.

 

bro, where did u get those rims ?!

 

So long strory short...........


Stock cat = no smell / no flame

High flow cat = slight smell / slight flame / loud tone / affects low end abit / increases high end

No cat = smell / flame / louder tone / affects low end abit / increases high end flow

 

Then we do not have the same dynos and/or the same chronometers system.


And, i don't know if there's any difference between USA and European car's electronic gestion/fuel, but this could help a little to increase the difference, honnestly, my car is one of the worst i've seen after installing a catless pipe on it, but there's other too afflicted in the same way, like there's cars wich just simply run better after the change.


And i like catless pipes yeah, don't worry, i'm just buying my third model actually with BHR, there's one thing i'm sure with 'em, they're just WAY TO GO when you wanna run a really agressive custom map ( like mine ), yeah, there's nothing to say about that of course, i'm still not sure for a stock map, but...

 

Basically, but don't forget that OP if you plan on doing any auto-x being catless is a big no-no in most classes and the ones you can run catless, you had better be on race rubber, here anyway. I didn't realize this as I got into auto-x after modding my car, and now if I want to be competitive on a nation level I have to run race rubber, or buy a high-flow cat. I am just running for fun now but if I change my mind later these will be my options. My .02.

 

I went Catless midpipe Love the smell, havent seen the flames.


Though it is bumming to know I just put myself in a class I'll never win in Auto-X the joys of the car outside that event far outweigh the loss plus it'll save me on brake pads and tires every 4 months >_>