Been reading about these and was curious if anyone here with a 98 era 5.9 Ram has used one and what were your experiences with it? I just read that they are not legal to buy or sell though.

Been running my 2001 without a convertor for a few years now. Took a lot of trial and error, but I got around it and have no codes. Didn't cost a cent to do it either.

Gained about 1.5 mpg and doesn't dowshift as much anymore. Total win situation.

When you say a lot of trial and error, to what are you referring? Isnt this just a "replace the rearward 02 sensor with the sim" kinda deal, kinda plug n play?

I used to have a '00 Silverado that was my daily driver. I'd done a good bit of work to it to make it a respectable performer. I used a pair of Casper's Electronics O2 simulators on it to eliminate the cats. They worked great, but are no longer available. I used them before I had a custom tune done on the computer. With EFI Live or HP Tuners, you can basically turn the O2 sensors off...no need for a simulator.

No, I made my own. Just did all the research on what the downstream is measuring, what the PCM wants to see and outsmart the computer from there. Time-consuming, but really wasn't that hard.

We just put dual 2.5 inch exhaust on my 98 ram with 5.2 motor last Thursday and all I did was put the existing sensors back in the new pipes. A week later and no codes yet, runs and drives great just like I knew it would. Did the same type of setup to my 99 ram I had back in 2005 and it was same deal, never had any problems with it. I don't see why you'd need simulators.

That's nice that the dodges don't need them. Every Chevy truck I've had needed sims or the PCM tuned to turn the SES light off after removing the cats.

Thanks for the info guys.

So does that mean a true dual exhaust can be installed or at least long tube headers?

Lots of guys running true dual, catless exhausts on the 5.9 Dakotas. No reason why it can't be done on the Rams.

What I did was took the rear O2 sensor and left it plugged in. I then zip tied it to the frame rail so it's reading ambient air. Computer sees more oxygen than the upstream sensor, and says "wow, this cat is working really well!" and no CEL.

Other guys have had to use sims though. a lot of it depends on the year and the emissions package (federal vs cali)

The way I figure it is that the first sensor still gets the mixture value it wants to see from one exhaust bank. I understand it to be that on a fuel injected vehicle you could never have one bank running richer or leaner than the other anyhow. So that sensor is fine in one bank. And the second sensor is only picking up exhaust values from one bank instead of 2 like before, so the computer thinks the cat is still there since it's only reading half the engine now and doesn't know it. Motor sounds great and drives like a different truck now. I'm quite happy with it.