OBS CA Emissions Cat... Same as Non CA?

[cowboyzr2]

So my '99 is equipped for California Emissions...
Recently I've heard an occasional rattle, power has dropped, and on the last fill up I averaged 11.2mpg. Yesterday the rattle turned into a horrible noise and got a CEL. Haven't scanned it yet, but I banged on the driver side cat and there's junk rattling around inside.

I've only got 69k on the clock, but the genius I bought it from sold it because he thought something was terrible wrong with it... and it turned out two plug wires were backwards. Not sure how long he drove it, but I'm sure the unburnt fuel into the cat didn't help.

I called around to local exhaust shops, and it looks like to have it replaced would be around $250... IF it didn't have California emissions. Since it does, the price jumped up to around $450.

Is there really that much of a difference between the two? If I didn't have to worry about passing emissions here, I would just gut it like I did on the Z before I moved to Texass.

Could I just stick a Magnaflow cat in place of it and keep from getting a SES light?

Thanks fellas.

 

[retorq]

Yeah a high flow after market cat will work fine. CA certified cats are more $$$, that is why your price jumped when you mentioned that.