I have heard that if you load the Euro version of the car's program you should not get a CEL without cats... Reason being they don't have cats over there, so they don't have that sensor after the cats.

disclaimer- i heard this on the internet.

 

for the street, i just don't think it's worth it. All that just to shave a few microseconds from your 0-60 time.

IMHO.

 

Not necessarily simulators, the spark plug anti-fouler trick works fine on Porsches.

 

To test if I want muffler bypass pipes, have no idea which ones yet, wouldn't just taking off the mufflers and doing a quick drive be the best solution? I'd think that'd be pretty much the sound you'd hear with just the simple J pipe, right?

 

You sure you want bypass pipes? I like loud but I think it'll be way too loud.
I've got afterhours and I bet it's the loudest before going bypass pipes and it's loud enough but not annoying.

 

I do think muffler bypass will be too loud, and too much drone, which is why I want a cheap way to test it before purchasing. I'd prefer some middle ground compromise, but that'll require an entirely new exhaust and thousands of dollars I'm not really thrilled about spending. Any recommendations on reasonably priced exhausts that'll accomplish this?

 

I'm not sure if you're looking at a full system or just mufflers. I was going after sound and a little bit of weight loss so I just purchased mufflers only. I'm sure with headers and cats, you'll pick up some addition hp but it's just not worth it for me. Rather spending 3-4k for a header/cats/exhaust, with that money I'd go tpc turbo for 10-11k which at that point would just buy a 996 turbo.
If you want new mufflers, it'll run you 900+ depending on what mufflers you buy. I've tried the PSE hack which was still too quiet. I was looking at many other systems but decided to go afterhours because they are the lightest and I'd say the sound is about 75% as loud as bypass pipes.
If you really want to hear what bypass pipes sound like, just remove the mufflers and drive it around. It only takes less than an hour to remove the stock mufflers on ramps.