Replacing only Y-Pipe (keeping cats)

chrisennis7

I can’t speak to the sound you’ll get but replacing the Y pipe is something that can be done on jack stands with hand tools in under an hour.
I don’t think the y pipe is nearly as restrictive as the cats. Have you considered high flow cats or maybe resonated test pipes?
I have the non resonated test pipes and with the stock exhaust they were a lot louder but very raspy.
Now with an added full CBE the rasp is nowhere near as noticeable but you can definitely tell the car is breathing a lot better.
Hope this helps.