To cat or not to cat....That is the ?
 

Going to add a front pipe and possibly an overpipe to the Ultimate Racing 3" catback. Header will have to wait until I decide what FI path to follow. The reason I am posting here is due to decibel restrictions at many tracks. I plan to include AMP and Barber to the mix and don't want to travel all the way there for a black flag. The question is catted? resonated? both? I plan to have the car tuned (93 & E85) this month once the rest of the exhaust is installed as well.

Clip from the UR 3"

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo5Kfb5aYGc"]Ultimate Racing 3" Catback - YouTube[/ame]

are you using the term cat/catted as a cat-back or are you refering to the actual catalytic converter?

As in catalytic converter specifically to reduce the sound volume. I don't have emission checks where I live so my choice is louder and slightly more powerful or quieter to pass the sound police at certain tracks.

can you just put 2 resonators in there to quiet things down? You can even put in 3 if you don't need cats. They don't affect flow, I think. I heard dynomax mufflers are really quiet and free flowing, too

There was an article a while back where some magazine took a Civic Si and replaced the factory exhaust with a cat-back version, then changed out the cats from OEM to test pipe. The max difference between them was about 1.5hp.

Maybe once you are FI you might see 5hp, maybe but I wouldn't consider it a part that needed to be removed as a huge block to power. Especially since a high-flow version will get you nearly what you would get with a test pipe.

He is concerned with sound.

IMO get cats because they have the added benefit of cutting down on smell.

"louder and slightly more powerful"

I wanted to try and quantify "slightly more powerful" for him. :w00t: