anyone......E46 M3 with no cats?

What do you need to know Adam?

I just wanna hear and smell this setup before I call you to order the SS Headers. I am torn with running the s pipe or race cat section. The extra $1000 could be spent elsewhere. You will end up with it all but maybe the UDP's and other stuff.

I answered your PM, but I didn't address the smell. All headers and race cats will smell rich (un-burnt fuel) until the cats light up. After the cats are hot it doesn't smell any different than stock. Only issue with not running the race (100 cell) cats is that the CEL will always be on and if something else goes foul you may not notice until damage is done to the motor (probably not but could happen). The car is pretty smart and if something bad is happening it will fall over to limp mode... most of the time anyway. Power difference between no cats and race cats is extremely small... only a couple hp. Really it all depends on what you want to do and how many $ your willing to let slip out of the wallet. I ran "no cats" for over a year. I had my exhaust cam timing sensor go out on me. I only noticed (CEL was already on) because of a high end power loss. If it would have been the intake side to car probably wouldn't have run. I am now running my race cats (again). The car isn't as unbelievably loud as it was, but it still sounds very good... and I'm sure my neighbors appreciate less noise. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Joel

Joel, i need to come and play in the m3, just so i know what im missing from not running headers and cats in my car...