I didn't read through but a few posts, but most exhaust shops won't even work on a car without a cat in place.

Yeah, on the west coast...

In Jacksonville I had to put my foot down with the owner of a shop because he insisted it would be much easier to "just cut the cat out and weld a pipe there". This was with my CRX right after a swap and all I needed done was to cut and rotate the header flange to meet the cat, so it would have sounded like ass if he cut out the cat, of course.

Oh, and congrats on passing Ben! :D Sorry I got a bit OT on my replies..

Do you still have the CC in place? I'm guessing they don't pop your hood for GA emissions..

If you're going to school me, at least don't forget to use an apostrophe to show possession. ;) (pun intended with the smilie that uses an apostrophe)

CC? Cat Conv? Yeah there's an enthuza cat there.
They used to pop the hood for rpm pickup. This year when the guy went to pop the hood, I told him about the COPs set up, so he instead placed some sort of pickup right on top of the hood. Which worked fine.