[jhandy]

1. having no cats at all will give you CEL and horriable A/F ratios. Bad idea. Unless you flash with Euro DME. good luck finding that in the US.

2. Lose the secondary cats, you will get a little improvement, no CEL. cost about 100$

3. Lose the headers and primary cats, keep the secondry cats. This has been done, it is a huge headache. The O2 sensors convert thier findings to an electrical signal that inpart is bascially a resistance number. The longer the wires, the more resistance, the closer and farther, the hotter and cooler the 02 sensors are, there is a difference in readings. If it is not perfect, and I dont see how you could even begin to calculate the correct place to put them, the CEl will come on and read #1.

BUT replaceing the headers will get you the most gains.

Also if you read my other post or serched in this forum, you will see the china headers can BURN your car to the ground. It is poorly made and gets very red hot, and it may not work with automatic cars because of a fluid hose and the power stering hose often gets burned up as well. Bad choice. Very expensive 1000$ in repair costs if you get to it before your car catchs fire.

4. Maxspeed headers (700$) and custom made bypass pipes (100$) is the best way.

5. There is almost no gain from a muffler. Aside from weight savings, your pedro muffler will be more than enough.

So the cheapest way to do it without HUGE headaches is about 800$ and install it yourself.
Also buy NEW HEADER BOLTS. trust me, for 12$ you will save yourself big problems. Mine fell out seveal times on the road untill i got new ones.

You have a nice german sports car that is worth 15-20,000. Why do you want to do something so cheaply you rig something up that will need to be fixed every weekend?

That is what I did until I got smart. Smart people make mistakes, Smarter people learn from other's mistakes.

I finally did it right and gained 30 hP and 30 ftlbs torque, proven on the dyno.

James