The purpose of this thread is to discuss the two cat delete pipes on the market for the 09+ TL. They are:


Excelerate's
http://store.excelerateperformance.c.../i-300877.aspx

and

Mr.HeelToe's
http://www.heeltoeauto.com/product.php?productid=65416

The Excelerate cat-delete pipe is $150 and the MrHeelToe pipe is $125. Vote on which one you'd purchase if you were me and whichever one wins by Friday, I will purchase and post installation pictures and a write up in this very thread!

 

 

Because of the heat shield tabs. THe piggies will never know

 

Yeah, I may have went with the Excelerate pipe anyway solely for the purpose of those tabs. Not only for the reason of cops and inspections, but also to keep a factory appearance while getting my car serviced at Acura.

 

I bought Excelerate's. The fitment was perfect, and I mounted the stock heat shields over it for the stealth aspect.

 

^ Was there a significant difference in power?

 

Looks like I will be buying the Excerate Pipe! It wins, 6 to 1. I'll be buying this on Monday or Tuesday, so stay tuned!

 

Have you noticed the Test pipe to be a bit smelly? Or any issues passing inspection?

 

It's hard to tell in terms of power, as I have other modifications. There is some significant jump in my powerband since installing.

There is absolutely no smell and no problem passing emissions.

Sound wise, I haven't even told anyone I installed it, and from inside the car it's almost impossible to tell, no one has said a thing. With the windows down, or from the outside, there is just more growl. A bit similar to a G35-G37 type sound, but even more subdued.

 

What are the advantages to doing the delete compared to an high flow cat?

 

higher flowing than a high flow cat (no restrictions whatsoever), more illegal than a high flow cat.

 

Sorry, I guess I should have asked if there are any disadvantages as of course it is going to flow unrestricted. So other than of course being illegal.

I currently have the Takeda intake and the J-Pipe. If I am understanding correctly you would only use the HF Cat if you wanted to be somewhat in compliance with emissions.

 

so this cat delete will not pass emissions tests? I am interested. I am currently running a ATLP Jpipe and full catback comptech exhaust.

I no nothing about this cat delete, and I am at work and can not really search. Care to inform?

 

^^Are you aware that you are in the 4G forum????

 

It is all dependent upon your state. Here in New York, they do not perform a visual inspection, they just do an emissions test. If you pass, you pass. You could have 0 cats in place, as long as it passes the emissions. Regardless, I put the shield on the cat delete anyway. Why ask for trouble? Other states perform visuals. And even in that case, some are stricter than others. That's why the tabs are there to mount the OEM shield, that way if you have a relaxed state that performs a visual test, they likely will not even notice. A state like California I hear is much tougher.

 

Are there any "loss of back pressure" issues? Granted when going with the HF cat you are eliminating a great deal of the back pressure and for sure when you go with the test pipe you are eliminating it entirely. I have read conflicting reports/stories that you still want/need to have some back pressure in the system. I am assuming that the pressure from the pre cats is sufficient enough for these vehicles.

I apologize in advance if this topic has been beat to death already, however I am not finding anything definitive in my searches.

 

Back pressure aids in torque (which we are lacking already) freeing up that back pressure will increase horsepower, but not always as simple as that. Using a TP for the 3rd cat will still leave sufficient backpressure utilizing the precats, and diameter of the stock exhaust.

Someone correct me if Im wrong.

 

For those of us with lots of questions on pros and cons... this is a good article (here).

The only concern left for me now is smell. I am thinking and of course correct me if I am wrong, that by keeping the pre-cats in place and doing a test pipe that any smell would be minimal at best?

If there is going to be a significant smell from using the test pipe then I will go with the HF Cat and deal with the slight amount of back pressure that is retained over the test pipe.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

 

From what I understand the precats do a damn good job in burning most hydrocarbons. Especially due to location. With them being as close as they are to the exhaust manifolds ti achieves the best result. I think the 3rd cat is more of a precautionary

 

It seems like the test pipe doesn't have many disadvantages, if the pre-cats are as good as they've been made out to be. The only problem would be trying to pass emissions in CA where it's illegal to take out the factory cat, but you could easily put the factory cat back in when you have to pass emissions.

 

^^ I agree. I think I will just go with the TP and keep the 3rd Cat just in case. They do not do the visual inspection or test the emissions at the tail pipe here, so I think I will be just fine. My biggest concern was any disadvantages from loss of back pressure and the potential for smelly exhaust which it looks like should be non existent due to the pre-cats.

 

I highly doubt backpressure will be an issue because the first two cats are truly the bottlenecks of the whole system with their tiny 2.25" inlets and outlets.

A test pipe should have better overall HP and TQ numbers than a high flow cat. However, I'm only wondering the issues concerning the noise level when I go to put on the Excelerate cat-back system.

 

Noise shouldnt be an issue on these cars. Unless you get PCD's, which arent currently made for our cars I dont believe, you wont have the tinny sound associated with the PCD's.

 

I really don't think that noise will be a problem. I have the Takeda and with the J-Pipe now installed the noise increase on "hard" acceleration was actually minimal. Normal cruising and acceleration are stock sounding so overall I am very impressed. I am thinking that the TP will not cause any appreciable increase in noise.

I could be wrong though, and will be keeping my stock cat just in case.

In fact everyone at the dealership and my wife are commenting on the "deep" growl coming from the car now and are relieved that it is not "tinny".

 

Which J-pipe are you running? I'll interesting in upgrading the exhaust with ATLP.

 

^^^^ This one (here)

 

Test pipe ordered. Thx XLR8.

 

My test pipe came in a few days back. I won't have time to install it until later in the week or next weekend. I'm not sure yet. The quality does look to be great and I can't wait to find out how well it fits. Stay tuned!

 

very nice.... it looks good.

 

So I finally got some time today to install the test-pipe. I was really trying to hurry because I just got out of work/school here at FT Lee and didn't know what time the auto shop closed. They let you use their car lifts for $6 an hour, not too shabby.

So when I got the car up on the lift, the first thing I did was apply a liberal coating of PB Blaster all over the bolts of the stock cat. Turns out I did not have to apply too much to the ones that Eric at Billy Boat Exhuast took off back in July when he installed the J-Pipe. All-in-all for an exhaust with 21,000 miles on it, the bolts were very easy to remove.

The toughest bolt was probably the top one located on the side attached to the J-Pipe. I did not use the same wrench/ratchet/crows foot combination to take it off as I did to put the new one on, but since I did it, you can too. You'll just have to work with whatever tools you have.

My recommendations for tools before you start this install are:

Uninstall:
3/8 and 1/2 ratchet drives
3/8 and 1/2 breaker bars
3/8 and 1/2 u-joints
3/8 and 1/2 3, 6 and 8 inch extenders
17mm crows foot
17mm deep and shallow socket
14mm deep and shallow socket (also for the underbrace bolts)

Install:
5/8" and 9/16" ratcheting wrenches (if you don't have any, use regular wrenches)






Here is a little historical update on how the J-Pipe looks after around 10,000 miles on it...



While you let the PB Blaster set in, take off the cross member, trust me, it'll save you a hassle in the long run to reach that top bolt on the stock cat. It's only 5 14mm bolts...



When you get all 6 bolts off of the stock cat, it's a little tricky to get off because everything is so tight. However, I found that literally a quick, hard pull downward on one side or the other of the cat will get it off. Be violent with it, the exhaust system can take it...





Now take your stock cat and unbolt the heat shield if you're choosing to go the sleeper-route like me...




...and bolt it up to the Excelerate test-pipe...





By the way!! Here is a very very important step for those of you using the stock shield. Make sure to fit the bolt for the top spot of the test pipe (facing the j-pipe) so that the head of the bolt is facing the rear of the car and the nut is on the J-Pipe side of the car! This will save you time of finding that you can't tighten it in that area if you try the other way and then you'll have to take the cat down again, unbolt the guards and put the bolt in and then put everything back up and together...

That bolt on top of the cat continued to be my achillies heel throughout the install, but ultimately, I got it...

Not the way the bolts should go! (below)


Here is a kinda bad picture of how it looked before I tightened it all down...








And you're done! The car now has a noticable depth to its growl that you can make out from the Takeda Intake's sound. I did promise sound clips, but those won't come until the end of the weekend at the soonest. Sorry everyone, but I have to find my point-and-shoot camera so that I can have a camera with video mode. These shots were taken with my Canon Digital Rebel SLR.

Overall, the test-pipe was a great fit, had great build quality, and makes for a smoother powerband feel that I could tell only in the first 15 miles! Now if I only I could have some more redline to play with to enjoy it more!

 

Awesome! Thanks for the write up. Do you notice any exhaust smell?

 

did you tighten the last flange connection more? you have a gap

 

Yes, all of the flanges were tiightened to the correct tighteness before I took the car off the lift... I guess oddly enough, that I didn't take a final picture? I thought I did, but couldn't find it on my camera card. Oh well I guess. It looks great underneath.

Also, I didn't notice any smell yet, but I will be giving updates on smell, bumper soot levels as well as the sound clips a little later on. Stay tuned!

 

^Nice job on the pics. You made it look easy.

 

Yeah great job and write up. Can't wait for the clips.

 

I know I haven't put up soundclips yet, but I have not actually found the camera that can record video yet. My schedule has been overloaded but I still plan on doing it. After thinking there was no sound difference, my wife who was sitting in the backseat a couple days ago "complained" to me that she could hear the new "exhaust thing" I put on the car and that she didn't like it. The two other passengers laughed at her because after she said it, it was dead silent and one of them said "...yeah, it sure is deafening in here." But who knows? Perhaps the camera will be able to pick up some noise?

On a side note, I finally got to test the MPG's on a repeatable pattern (my drive from Clarksville, TN to Richmond, VA) and found I got... 29.0 MPG!!! I was amazed, even though it's only a .5mpg improvement over my best ever recording, I view it as extremely significant because if anyone has drove I-40 in that area, they know of the hills and their affects on fuel mileage. My average speed was 74mph (said MID) and the MID also recorded that my fuel mileage was 27.7MPG, but was inaccurate after I did the calculations.

So for anybody who cares, the mixture of the Excelerate J-Pipe, Excelerate test pipe and Takeda intake should make your 6MT TL able to get 29MPG Highway miles. Pretty awesome for a 4000lb, V-6 with AWD!

 

So I have a rather uncomplimentary update to report on with this Excelerate cat-delete pipe...

Back in November, I misdiagnosed a rattle from under my car at low RPM's as the heat shielding somewhere along the exhaust system coming in contact. It turns out that one of the four welded-on tabs had broken off of the main body of the cat delete pipe. After taking off the heat shield and keeping the broken tab as a keepsake, I bolted back on the other three and thought it was good to go.

A week ago, I noticed the buzzing noise was back again, more annoying than ever. I correctly assumed another tab had broken off again, so I took my car to the autocraft shop and took a couple of pictures. I decided now to take off the entire heat shield and be done with it. I really wanted to keep it on for posterities sake, but now I can't.

Overall, I'm happy that the flanges and gaskets have held up nicely, but I am disappointed that the heat shield tabs broke off. For $150, I expected everything to stay together for over 3 years maybe, ha.

Oh well, here's some pictures so you can see what I'm trying to say...

 

Have you contacted Josh from excelerate about this? Maybe he can help you out since it seems to be a manufacturers defect.

 

Nah, I'm not gonna do that, I don't want to take the time to take this one off and put on a new one all over again.

 

I hear what your saying, but it doesnt take away from the fact that the product had an issue. He should at least be notified so that he can look into either better welds, or thicker brackets.