3" down pipe and 3" straight pipe in place of the

as many of you know, i had some exhaust work done about a month ago. i bought a ZZP 3" shorty down pipe with the double wall flex section in hopes that it would bolt up nice and easy (and cheap) to the rivs exhaust. i went to 3 different local shops to get price quotes, and each place had radicaly different quotes. one place said $200 and another said $110 and finally the third said $75. guess which one i went to
the funny thing is they were all in the same local area, had reputable shops and were the "mom and pop" style exhaust places. dont even bother with places like mineki (sp?), they want a butt load of money just to weld up my tips awhile back.
so back to my story, i went to the shop and they put it up on the lift, looked at it, looked at me, and said "ya know, it would be much easier if the cat were not in the way". since our cat is welded to the stock DP it makes things more chalengine in terms of welding and making it all fit. (the GTP's are bolted whick means they can replace it in they own garage )
they agreed to weld up a straight 3" pipe in place of the cat if i went out and got the pipe. autozone had 1 left! its a perfect length too. 18" same gauge as the zzp pipe. and its only 6 or 7 chips
day 2: i took it back and they started cutting and unbolting the old exhaust. then we ran into a problem, the riviera's stock DP to rear mani gasket is the doughnut type and the zzp pipe is made for flat GTP style gaskets plus the holes on the rear collector did not line up with the new DP. so we had to drill/ream out the zzp holes and hope & pray that the doughnut would seal it. if i had to do it again i would try to find a slightly larger gasket and use both doughnut and flat gasket to seal it.
finally it was done and we leak tested it, yep its got a small leak around the gasket under heavy throttle but i cant hear it.

all in all it has a slightly different sound outside the car and absolutly no drone inside. its a little more raspy/airy under 50% + throttle and more throaty idle by putting in the 18" straigh pipe it was about .5" longer than stock so my tips stick out a little bit more than before but its not too bad.
it cost me just under $200 for everything and i gained about 10hp.
took off about .5 sec on my 1/4 mile time! its deffinatly something you can feel especially when passing on the highway. my 0-90 time is 12.0s now!
one last thing to note, although i do not have a catalitic converter anymore, i have yet to see the SES light for emissions problems. FL doesnt do tests so im ok as long as no cop looks under there
if you are looking at buying a DP and deleting the cat. you may want to think about getting a 02 sim if the code does come up.
ok and now for the pictures;

How much was the downpipe? It looks like they did a good job on her. Do you get any popping when you let off the gas since you deleted the cat?

yea it pops some but i dont let off the gas that much

Mr.Riviera wrote:

yea it pops some but i dont let off the gas that much

Mr.Riviera wrote:

yea it pops some but i dont let off the gas that much

umm u never answerd JAX95RIV how much it was and WHICH options did u choose off of the list

What is this doughnut you speak of?

i got the zzp 3" shorty (79.99) and added the interlock flex to keep noise down(+10) so that and shipping came to about 100 but i got a discount throught our local club so it was a little bit chaeper than 100 for me.
the doughnut is at the top of the downpipe that joins the DP to the collector. its just a round piece of "spongy" metal that acts like a gasket

Mr.Riviera wrote:

i got the zzp 3" shorty (79.99) and added the interlock flex to keep noise down(+10) so that and shipping came to about 100 but i got a discount throught our local club so it was a little bit chaeper than 100 for me.
the doughnut is at the top of the downpipe that joins the DP to the collector. its just a round piece of "spongy" metal that acts like a gasket

THANK MAN I may have to do this!!!!!!!!