exhaust for a 96 Lt1. Im looking at Hooker headers and straight pipes. If you take the cat off will it skip a beat? Exhausts go in pulses of air, and i dont like the raspy sound in most camaros when they get stright pipes. I was thinking about gutting the cat., would this work as a resonator? I think a muffler makes it too quiet for me. so is my best bet to get new headers, gut cat, and use around 2.5+ piping and connect the tips from the stock? If the stock is smaller than the 2.5+ piping, it will get air restriction. air restriction = loss of hp. so any advice?

 

If it's "too quiet" for you, you can always just run open headers!

On a serious note, headers with straight pipes is going to be rediculous, you may as well run open headers. If you remove or gut your cat, you'll either have a bunch of problems with the car running right and you'll fail your next emissions test, or you'll have to get O2 sims. Plus, if you get some good high flow cats, you won't loose any power anyway, and you'll make your computer happy. If you're going for straight pipes, at least get some resonator tips to cut down on the noise a bit. As far as the tips inlet diameter, that far back in the system you'd have to choke it down pretty seriously to get any noticible decrease in power, so I wouldn't worry about that too much, just make it reasonable.