Holowing out the cats

Ive never owned a FI performance car before. My last one was an 86 camaro z-28 and i just welded in a straight pipe instead of the cat. But i was fumbling through some webpages and i knoticed that the O2 sensors come after the cats. And on another forum the a guy holowed out his cats and it caused an O2 Malfunction (wich he thinks makes his engine run rich). Is holowing out the cats a bad idea? Im a college kid and i dont have much money to be dumping ito parts as i screw them up...so im kinda watching before i leap. But im installing a new exhaust and i figured i could clean them puppies out while I was at it. Until i can get a set of hedders later. (Car needs exhaust, paint, doorseals, then performance parts...<daily driver>) Any advice woud be great. PS im installing an air/fuel ratio gauge anyhow..so that should help me monitor problems.

On another note.. The car has 141k (something alot less on the engine cause it was pulled and redone once but i dont know when) on it and some really ugly looking wiresets..(the rubber looks like it might be OEM ) and i was wondering if the Bosh sets are any good. Plus while im at it. Should i put the stock plaitnum plugs back in? and wheres a good place to get them...seing as how id ont trust my Autozone computer whats the model num?

1992 SC Auto

Thanks again.

i hollowed out my cats.....but on my 92 sc the sensors were before the cats...so it didn't matter. The sound isn't great...but it was cheap. Has a ratty sound to it from the echo. I ended up cutting the cats right out and pipe in their place about a week later. The sound is incredible. Its sound like pure power, i've never heard any other SC like it. I have a weird exhaust set up and i've never seen the combo that i have for my exhaust.

hmm

How did you make the pipe? Maybe im looking at the wrong diagrams but i thought the cats are the tow elbow shaped things that bolt directly to the headder.

thanks

===dz

On the driver's side it does bolt dircetly to the exhuast manifold, the other is back a little bit. Reason for that is clearence issues. I don't know personally of any problems gutting the cats, my bro and friend both run 5.0L's with no cats no problems. I've heard it can make the O2 sensor read a little off and cause it to run a little rich.