So I was driving home from the store and heard something dragging, pulled over and turns out my mid-pipe was dragging.

 

pulled it off and shopping around for options, but it looks like the cat isn't a OE/direct fit so a new resonator won't just bolt onto it.

 

I was wondering if there are any options other than welding to attach it, or should I just buy a new cat for $140 from Rockauto along with a direct fit resonator so I can just bolt it all together and not have to do anything to make it fit.

 

Even with getting the cat and pipe and doing it myself, it's cheaper than just having any of the shops I called do it.

I had the same resonator problem on both my 98 and 99 OBWs. I went to a "torch cut out, new pipe bend, weld in," family owned muffler shop. I had them simply weld in a short piece of straight pipe to replace the resonator. Surprisingly, the exhaust system is as quiet, as when the resonator was in place. It cost me about $35-40 to have the straight pipe installed. This work was done about 3 years ago, and the repair has held up great.

thanks for the suggestion, I have the muffler and pipe on their way and found an exhaust shop that's going to install them for me so they can do some custom work to hook it to the cat.

 

Main problem was most places won't use my parts and want to charge 4x the cost just for the parts, let alone labor.

 

So lets see where this goes!