By breaker bar I mean a socket wrench with 3ft handle. I also have a 4ft piece of pipe "cheater bar" that I can use to extend it. However, it gets pretty awkward to use by myself. I might take one more crack at it with a friend. If that doesn't get it I can drill into the head of the bolt with a tungsten carbide dremel tip. And then I should be able to break the head off. Can someone confirm that I can remove the cat with the demon bolt shaft still in there? I don't want to cut the head off and find that the shaft is actually threaded into the header side of the flange.


Thanks for the input so far.

Edit: I just got the driver side off. The passenger side is pretty well stripped. Going to have to cut.

After reading this whole thread I feel like I'm heading into a thunderstorm with nothing but an umbrella.

The lesson is to make sure you spray the bolts with penetrating oil, use the correct high impact socket, and have someone to help hold the socket in place while the other breaks the bolts loose with a breaker bar so it doesn't strip and get SCREWED!! other than that? their shouldn't be any issues ;)

It really is this simple. Applying the lube to warm bolts also helps. But the big thing is the impact socket and ensuring it stays on square while you're wrenching on it.

I even sprayed the bolts down a week before getting my TP's

Short question on this topic. Is it possible to go pay a shop just to remove ONLY the two top bolts ? would cost at most $30 and would save you the hassle of stripping it etc ?

Some shops have had the same issues because they think they can just pop the bolt right out. Next thing you know they're torching the thing and charging you 3 hours of labor.

:iagree:

I had two demon bolts on mine...what a ******* ordeal that was. I had the car on the lift 3' up with a guy under holding the socket on the bolt. I was on a 6' ladder with a 2' breaker bar and a floor jack handle as a cheater. I sheared them both off, by far the easiest way to do it.

Soaked mine a couple of times with PB blaster overnight and tackled it the next day by myself. Sheared one off on the pass side. the rest made a lot of noise, but came off.
The Driver' side was the hardest to do. Sure was nice to get rid of those stock cats.
Mine was just on ramps. Wrap a towel around the end of your breaker bar so not to dent the hood if the bolt breaks.

Did you end up using a impact socket ?, if so what size.

Can't wait to do this this week!

I should just take a picture when I get home.

I believe it was a 14mm impact socket. Used that with two straight 1/2" extenders to the Ratchet with a piece of 1" Conduit over the end to give me the force needed to move.
I also have 1/2 impact swivel for the Drivers side.

Doing mine this weekend.. gonna be fun

I have 22,0xx miles. I wonder how this is going to pan out. Easier or harder than most...?

Lol Joy!!! Good luck with that, I also had to resort to cutting one of the heads off w/ a dremel and shaking the hell out of the cat to break it free. The other came off when using a 3 ft breaker bar, a pipe and pushing body weight on it, but busted my hands all up. It's no cake walk that's for sure.

And probably harder since heat and rust will probably play a factor now. Even the O2 sensors are hard to get off once they've been heated/infused into the threading for so many miles.

Super!! lol

Let me know how hard or easy it is and what u used. I've got about the same as you and plan on installing later next week

I strongly suggest against a swivel. It makes it that much harder. If you take the intakes out you can use straight extensions to remove thus making it a hole lot easier. Plus you don't have to worry as much about the impact socket coming off.

So take out the intakes AND the strut bar in my case.

Yes. That's what I did and it worked perfect for me. It's tighter on the drivers side but it will slide in there straight. If I remember right you will need a couple of extensions up to about 32". Plus I had a two foot breaker bar. Just be carefull when it gives. Don't want it to slam into the motor.

Taking the stock air boxes out helped a good bit, but 4 out of 5 installs you'll have to break the head off the bolt to get the stock cats out. Try to use some sort of lubricant like PB Blaster or WD-40 and let it soak for a while. Make sure the car is cooled down, otherwise the bolts will still be expanded and you'll be setting yourself up for even more fail. If you're able to get the bolt a 1/4 of a turn, use more PB Blaster and try to hit the threads if possible and work your way back and forth.

If you have to snap the head of the bolt, so be it. It's not the end of the world and you can drill and re-tap. That's what had to be done on my car.

Mine was only a 30deg swivel and it was tight. I had no trouble at all with slipping on the driver's side. Passenger side was more of a pain. The O2 sensors came off easily with an adjustable wrench.
Forgot to mention that I was installing the stillen g3 at the same time, so the strut bar and intakes were out.

So would you recommend against going to a shop and offering them $30-$40 just to remove the top 2 bolts ?

I found that if you PB blast it on both sides when mildly hot and put a blunt point tip on a air chisel and vibro shock the flange around the outer circumference of the bolt, it will crack the rust in the frozen up bolt.

It can make the difference between snapping Vs unscrewing the bolt.

. Even if you snap the bolt, all you would have to do to fix is go to a hardware store and buy a new one right?

Are most of you guys who are destroying these bolts from up North where they salt the roads? Mine took a lot of torque but was nowhere near being damaged.

I think it depends on how long you've had your car, the longer you've had it the worse the install is probably going to be due to rust accumulation.

My car has 34k miles and has been owned and driven in NY through all seasons and I took mines off by torching it and having someone turning it counter-clockwise at the same time. Took some time and strength but it worked. I did this with an extension as well so I was able to keep my G3's in there

Quick question.. isnt one of the bolts permanently in the factory header? Aka welded to it on the top so its not removable? or is that the one that has a star fitting on the top which can be removed from the engine bay with an extension?

Mine is a bit stripped out so if it gets loose I want to remove that factory bolt, dremel out the hole a wee bit and use some heavy duty replacements.

None of it is welded and is removable. There shouldn't be any star shaped headed bolt down there.

I think the stud you are thinking about was in the cat, not the header. Once you convert to after-market it is just 3 straight bolts.

hit it a few times over the course of the next few days.

Pretty sure one of those is a stud that is in the header, maybe they left it from the OEM cat when they removed it?

well, the stud bolt is indeed a star tip I can confirm... it doesn't have to be taken out... but it's there. I reused it when I installed my ART pipes.

Yep... did that myself as well.

I must be missing something. Is this the bolt in the cat itself? If so that really has nothing to do with the removal of the cats for there is a nut that has to be removed off the stud (or star shaped stud). The wording from the OP is hard to understand what he is referring to.

Yeah I think two per cat are bolts and one is a stud threaded into the hole on the header. Therefore, you just leave the stud there, remove the bolt and then re-use the bolt when bolting the new piece up.

The top of the stud (engine side) I believe has a star fitting so you can unscrew it though.

Yea I just replaced it all with the supplied bolts being there SS.