I had no choice but to remove the cat from the '88 Dodge Ram V6 I've been putting back together. Not only did the truck not come with a cat, an OE one is not available and aftermarket ones are pointless since the truck is over 25 years old and exempt!

Some vehicles, it's as easy as cutting them out, and welding in pipe. Some vehicles, like my Ram, had an air tube run from the air pump and not only pumped air into the manifolds, it pumped air into the cat as well. These are the ones you gotta watch out for because you don't want those air pipes turning into exhaust leaks. Since my air pump was also gone, I figured I'd delete the tubing and plug off the manifolds. Well, those plugs would've wound up being really odd sizes and drilling the holes bigger in my case, just wasn't an option. Not only that, a y-pipe for the V6 Ram is unobtainium. But I could find a y-pipe from a Dakota.... but that necessitated finding Dakota manifolds. THAT actually turned out to be a stroke of luck because '94-and-up manifolds no longer have the air injection ports.

But then, I needed a Dakota trans dipstick tube. because the one for the Ram manifolds ran right where the Dakota manifolds run. Ugh. What a debacle. Luckily it all worked out in the end.