I am thinking about buying a set of american racing long tubes and using the stock cats and h-pipe to save money. anyone done this? I have heard that the stock system flows fine up to 450 rwhp. any ideas?

 

I just installed a set of ARH long tubes and what you are proposing is not really practical. Since the long tubes would occupy the space your stock cats are in that means they would have to be relocated from where they are now to under the car. The stock cats are a lot larger than aftermarket cats and you would have ground clearence issues. You'd also use up any money that you saved cutting the cats out of the existing h-pipe assembly and moving them downstream and welding them back in. Then making sure the spacing is right so that it all lines up with the collectors on the long tubes, ect.
You wouldn't be saving anything. It would be a lot less hassle and probably about the same or less expense to just get a catted aftermarket x-pipe or h-pipe that fits the ARH long tube headers.
Since the stock exhaust system is farily good as is, you'd be best just saving your money until you can aford the whole package.

 

thanks for the input! I was wondering why nobody was doing that... this is why i love this forum so much!!!

 

You could just get JBA shortys, then add a high-flow cat-x later

 

the best bet is going with a JBA longtube system with their short catted H, would save alot more cash and you know everything will fit, or you could ask CR at TillmanSpeed to find out if the JBA short catted H will fit the ARH LT's