Recommended tools:

Socket wrench
Phillips and flathead screwdrivers
14mm combination wrench
14mm short (or small) socket
12mm socket
22mm combination socket
As many extensions as you can find
A method of lifting up the car
Two crawlers (so when one guy won't get off his crawler, you don't have to use a skateboard)
A digital camera (so you can take more pictures than we did)

NOTES:

We recommend doing this after your car has cooled overnight. The catyltic converter retains heat fairly well and the transmission probably doesn't cool down for several hours, although it's not unbearable.

Depending on how many heat cycles your car has gone through, you might want to squirt some liquid wrench or WD-40 to squirt on the immediately accessible bolts. I recommend getting anti-sieze for the bolts and some gasket glue so you don't get a leak down the line, and if you do, you can actually twist the bolts off.

If you want to do this by the book, go buy some new gaskets, gasket glue, and find out what the torque specs for those bolts are. The MINES kit that hatebobbarker installed is not complete. We counted eight holes but only six nuts and bolts. I would recommend finding something that fits at Autozone, but we improvised by using one of the OE bolts.

This writeup is not step-by-step. I expect one could fill in the small blanks. If you can't, have a shop do it. We did this in about two hours. The record time was about 45 minutes.

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At some point, somehow lift the front of the car up so that you can comfortably creep under it.

Disconnect the negative battery terminal. Disconnect the MAF sensor and swing the connector out of the way after you remove the intake elbow and airbox. Now take all those extensions and stick them together with the 14mm at the end like so:

 

If you look carefully, you'll see the top nut of the exhaust manifold. You know what to do.

 

Mosey over to the passenger side and do the same to the top of the passenger side flange nut thing.

 

Now, slide beneath the car and disconnect the 02 sensors and slide the connectors off the brackets. While you're down there, loosen all the other bolts related to the exhaust system. Don't worry about the big shiny bar between the two cats, it'll all come out in one big piece.

 

You should see something like this from down there:

 

 

When you get all the bolts out, somehow jimmy out the whole thing. This will pop out of the car:

 

Take off the gaskets and place them to the side for now. Flip the assembly upside down, and use the 22mm wrench to transfer the oxygen sensors from the cats to the test pipes. Use anti-sieze on the threads. Be careful not to touch or damage the tips of the 02 sensors as they are sensitive and probably expensive.

At this point, put some gasket glue on both sides of the gasket and lay it on. I recommend bolting the upper part up where it meets the manifold because the Y-pipe has a forgiving flex joint. Use a combo wrench on one side and a socket on the other to tighten that tricky upper bolt. Don't forget to use anti-sieze before you put the bolt in. Get the lower gasket for whatever side you're doing, lay on the gasket glue and bolt down until it's nice and tight. Don't forget to use anti-seize and make sure everything is nice and tight.

Do the same for the other side. Reconnect the O2 sensors, thread the wires back into that little bracket on the transmission and reconnect them. Make sure they click into place.

Lower the car. If you didn't disconnect the negative battery terminal before working on the car, then reset the ECU, otherwise the car will run very rich. If you used gasket glue, and you're going by the book, let it sit for a few hours. Otherwise, fire up the car and take 'er for a spin.

 

I just had the Kinetix Hi-flow's installed yesterday. Is it true that you are not able to use the old stock support bracket (above) that holds the 2 cats side by side anymore?

 

Unless whatever you're installing has holes for it, you're not going to be using the bracket.

 

isnt my hand sexy
esprit makes the only set with brackets for the support i believe.

 

so do you experience the RASP that everyone is talking about with test pipes? Ive never heard the rasp in person, but many compare to the fart can sound in a honda civic. Is this a fair comparison?

 

and a rotary if you rev it parked

the reasp always happens
im told full exhaust or turbos eliminate the rasp

 

If I had a method of recording it, I'd put it up. It's not a very fair comparison as the Z has a much smoother exhaust tone overall and you only really hear it outside the car. If you've ever heard an E46 M3, it sounds very similar.

 

I switched to the LAbree resonated test pipes late last week and they have NO rasp at all....power is just like with the straight test pipes I had before and they have the brackets to allow for the use of the tranny brace. I really wanted this because I did not want to overstress the welds on my DC headers and risk a cracked header weld down the road.

 

wow, nice writeup.....

took you long enough with the test pipes. did you really feel anything performance wise? come on down, lets race again

 

wait till i sell my 240 then ill race you in the Z