that’s really high.
I had a guy charge me $300 to remove my stock system, and install my JHM system (JHM downpipes and JHM catback)…and people told me that was high.
I have also seen people quoted $400-500 to remove stockers, gut precats (or cut them out entirely and re-weld straight pipe in place) and reinstall.
So $900 is a bit nuts.
Where are you located?
I’d have to think you’re getting charged a premium for already having broken studs. They’re not just doing a simple job now. Now they’ve got to drill the studs out replace them and still remove the other side.
Drilling exhaust studs is going to be tough. They’re grade 8 or higher material. I don’t know if it’s nine hundred dollars tough but it’s hard. When you figure you’re on your back doing this. It’s going to be a bit of a task.
Your going to need a plugin hand drill and serious drill bits. I’d say you’re best off trying to get extraction bits.
Cleveland, Ohio.
I told them that I was expecting it to be around the $500 range. for the numbers they are talking, I could almost be putting on a whole exhaust system. 4.5 hours to remove / reinstall the pipes, 2 hours to fix the broken studs and a flat $150 to core out the primary cat. This is at a “tuning” shop - not an exhaust place. I’m looking around for some options.
$150 for my DPs. Added another $50 for broken bolt extraction, and thread cleanup.
yeah, I agree. I’m going to call around to some places that specialize in this type of thing.
Yeah, talked to a guy who does this. says he can fix the studs for $35… said it would take him less about 30 minutes…
he wasn’t willing to touch the cats at all - said he thought it would be illegal… but he is willing to unbolt everything for me and I can take it from there… I’ll have to talk with this guy when I’m ready to do a full system - he does custom exhaust fabrication and is really down to earth.
he does full exhaust fabrication but wont gut your precats? That’s kinda funny. Guess he does custom exhausts for slow as hell race teams?
Thats exactly what I was thinking. Sounds like a great deal on the studs. A terrible deal on having him do a custom exhaust. I understand a potential worry about modifying emissions equipment. However if he is making a full custom exhaust he is removing emissions equipment. Removing emissions system from a car is more of a fine than modification of the emissions system.
Can’t he just issue a disclaimer that ‘after decat the vehicle is for off road use only’
Or is it not that simples
My assumption is that he doesn’t want to be involved in altering/removal an OEM cat. He did offer to build me something custom that is very high flowing. It might have also been just something he didn’t want to deal with/not worth his time… 
I did find an interesting FAQ about guidelines for exhaust work - and the guy is right. It is illegal to do what I asked him to do. Reading through the FAQ (it has Ohio and US EPA rules) and most exhaust modifications seem to be illegal - even for off-road use it says. Looks like Ohio has some pretty restrictive rules:
State law prohibits any person from removing or rendering inoperative any emission control device
or element of design installed on or in any motor vehicle or motor vehicle engine. The exhaust system
configuration, including the location of the converters, and the exhaust pipe diameter and length, are
items specified by the manufacturer during certification because engines and some of the associated emission
systems are generally affected by the exhaust back-pressure, which subsequently affects vehicle emissions.
http://epa.ohio.gov/portals/27/echeck/docs/exhaust_repair_guidelines.pdf
The way I read it, you basically have to replace 1 for 1 on any exhaust system and are not allowed to change any aspect of the original exhaust design that was certified with the engine.
lol
Void - just wait 'til you get the section with the fines! :
up
If you read and follow this you see you can’t change anything. He can’t even make you aftermarket dps. That’s considered tampering with emmisons equipment. I would bet if he knew you better he would do it. He probably does it all the time but not knowing you he is playing it safe.
just a minor update. the exhaust guy had all 9 bolts (6 studs on the downpipe/headers and 4 bolts where the downpipe meets the main exhaust) removed and replaced the studs with the ones that I bought from ECS. They had it all done in an hour… where the tuning shop quoted me $900 - this guy took care of them for $74. lesson learned on my end - I didn’t apply enough heat to the bolts to remove them… he put it all back together and put anti-seize on them so that I can remove them easily this weekend.
Does gutting the top cat start throwing codes without a tune - or can I solve that with O2 spacers?
all 6 bolts snapped on mine when they were removed (yay salt). when heating a stubborn bolt u want to get that sucker glowing and sometimes it helps to let it heat and cool a few times. u can also freeze it to help make it smaller with any compressed gas.
glad to see u got it sorted for a good price I was about to offer u my dps so u could just cut the old ones out.
That’s a good exhaust shop price the 900$ was crazy. 02 spacers will help if you get the right ones. Your going to get a light of you don’t get spacers or a jhm tune.