are they supposed to come off?? i got the nuts off the ends and the whole exhaust slid off, but i can't seem to knock the bolts out. i've been soaking them in penetrating oil, but they won't budge. i don't wanna hurt the cat by hammering them too much. also, even if they were loose, there doesn't seem to be any space between the head of the bolt and the cat itself to even pull them out. i'm stuck. need some help here guys.

I'm pretty sure they are supposed to stay in. If you're just doing a catback exhaust, then you'll only need to take the two nuts off the cat.

well that sucks b/c i stripped one of them trying to grip it w/ a vice grip. also, the new catback came w/ new bolts for all the union. any suggestions?

mine came off i think. Try unbolting the cat and lowering it a little to unscrew them.

well i just ended up rethreading the one and using the same bolts w/ new nuts. another thing though, after going for a ~10 min drive, when i came back there was a really strong burning smell and i looked under and the cat area was smoking. i'm guessing it's the new gasket between the cat and the rest of sys. is this totally normal? i can't imagine that anything else is burning.

Same thing happened to me... It just bought a new gasket and used some silicone and it went away right after that, just make sure that you give the time for the silicone to set, or its just gonna melt away... BTW, what kinda exhaust did u end up gettin?

actually i did put a new gasket on there. i figured that's what's burning. should it be? i have no silicone or anything on there w/ it.

i got the 3" SS ceramic coated exhasut from extremepsi.com . it just came out. looks nice, and has an N1 style muff