I am wanting to gut my catalytic convertors, but the guy at the muffler shop told me to check and see if it is okay to do because of the sensors. I have a 01' silverado v8, would I have to have it programmed before i do this or will it be fine the way it is?

 

You can have the sensors turned off with EDIT.

 

It will run fine since the 02 sensors that the PCM reads for a/f ratio are the ones in front of the cats. You will, however get codes for the back 02s that will need to be taken care of unless you like the soft glow of the SES light .

 

Those sensors won't mess with anything but the SES light. A custom tune will take care of that.

 

Or you can get 02 simmulators to take care of the rears.

 

I gutted my cat on my 95 blazer. Freed up some sotp power as well as the smell and rattle of the bad cat. Like stated above, a tune or sims would solve the problem. Some muffler places wont do it. I found one that would and just paid cash.

 

So if I buy the hypertech programmer will that do the trick? Thanks for all the help

 

no a hypertech can not delete them. You have to have a custom tune which will cost about the same as a hypertech depending on who you go with. or you can use ls1edit, hptuners.

 

soft glow

Ive heard simulators arent all there cracked up to be

someone correct me if Im wrong
cause Ive never had them

 

The rear oxygen sensors are not used for air/fuel ratio, only to monitor the efficiency of the catalytic converters. Programming them out simply relieves the computer of an additional smog-related duty. The sims work fine.

I can tell you this though, be prepared for your exhaust to sound completely different. I lost my cats because they overheated and turned to dust. Without them the exhaust is obnoxiously loud and I really hate it. I have resolved the air/fuel ratio issue with WOT that destroyed my cats in the first place and will be installing new ones as soon as $360.00 has no other use.

I have installed a set of straight pipes in place of where the two 3" cats were and it sounds less crappy than with the hollw cans, but it's still unbearable. Just keep that in mind. Cats contribute to sound reduction as much as mufflers do.