I have a 2001 Boxster and am considering replacing/upgrading the entire exhaust system (from the headers back) due to bad catalytic converters.
Fabspeed claims that their 986 Boxster Performance Package, which is made completely out of stainless steel, has no detrimental effect on emissions (i.e. can pass all 50 state emission requirements and is the same as OEM emissions). This system has no secondary cats!

The questions I have are:
1. Does anyone know if this is true?
2. Are the primary cats that Fabspeed provides of a higher quality (more cells), such that they can do the job of the primary and secondary as installed originally by Porsche?
3. I live in the Vancouver BC region and would like to know if this sport exhaust system can pass BC air care standards?
4. Which air care standards are tougher: British Columbia's or California's?

Comments and or suggestions

 

I don't know the regulations in BC, but in my state (California), it would require a CARB E.O. number...and then still fail the visual, due to the lack of secondary cats, I believe.

 

Really can't definitively answer any of your questions except to offer an opinion that says that I do not think there are any environmental statutes out there there that are worse or more onerous than the California regs. They pride themselves in "leading the nation".

 

I have the full FabSpeed system on my 2002 986S ( headers + single cats + mufflers), and no problem passing in Georgia where they just plug in to the OBDII port. On one of my older OBD I cars, they sniff the exhaust while on a wheel roller at various speeds, but thay don't do this with OBDII.

So, the Porsche OBD II obviously thinks everything is working fine, and no CEL's.

From what I understand, the ROW models only had the second cats installed, but for the US they added the cats in the headers for quicker cold start emissions compliance. I believe that after the engine has been running for 15 minutes or so, you probably only need one set of cats to meet any reasonable emissions limits, but you may want to check this with FabSpeed before ordering.

 

DOUGLAP1, I too live in GA and a 2004S with the muffler and 2nd Cat bypass, but still with factory headers. I passed this year BUT, they do a visual inspection as well as the OBDII plug-in, and I was a little worried. The guy stuck the mirror-on-a-stick under there and said, "Hey, you don't have any cats on this replacement exhaust system." I told him they're not supposed to be there because they are on the back of the headers. He looked and said, "yeah, I see that, but I'm used to seeing them on the exhaust pipes back here also." I told him different model years have different systems and some don't have them back there. He grumbled but was okay with it.

But obviously he had seem enough Boxsters to know something was up. Of course, the car passed the OBDII check perfectly.