I live in Canada where they don't really do emissions tests. Anyway I just got back from a muffler shop and my cat is getting plugged on my Canadian 5th gen EX (LX in US), plus I was asking on a price for him to fabricate an exhaust for me. The owner is a big stock car racer has his own trailer like nascar where the cars go up on top and everything. Anyway he knows a thing or 2 about exhaust and performance. So what he is proposing is that he can make me a 2.25" aluminized pipes with a magnaflow stainless muffler. He is also proposing for me to remove my cat alltogether. Then I said what about my safety inspection. He said just bring it to me and I will do it no problem. However he doesn't have a mandrel bender, but because he makes all his exhaust for his stock cars, he has a really good bender which doesn't crimp the pipe that much at all. He is quite confident that I will only be loosing 0.5hp from the bends over a mandrel bent. But then removing my cat is going to give me a lot more. And the price for all this is only going to be around $450.00 Canadian, installed. So what do you guys all think so I go for the cat removal? Also he can get me a header for around $250 but I think it is a Ractive. Any thoughts on that? I do have an air intake and NGK Platinum plugs but am looking forward to some more juice. Thanks,

Magna77