The place I've enquired about 400 cell sports cats down here is talking about needing to use flexi pipes to fit them in the available space. Don't like that idea, plus in theory they're illegal for the age of the car due to lacking an e-mark, so in theory they should fail an MOT even if it passed the emissions test.

Virtually no chance of that happening, but given what I do for a living (which includes responsibility for the legislation around replacement catalytic converters!) I wouldn't want to be seen to be peeing into the wind!

I gather with CEL coming on it's due to lack of efficiency of the cats (especially 200 cell) and one way to overcome this is to fit a spacer under the lambda probe to lift it out of the exhaust flow a bit, so it sees less of the gases.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ;)

Nobody lol but my conscience would bother me :D

I wasnt for a moment, ahem, suggesting that you break the law, :tuttut:

What a nightmare trying to ship these cats is turning into! Now I've got the cats off the car, the offside one is 1.5m long :tuttut:

Had a think about how to package them and figured a cardboard bike box was the best option - acquired a couple from Evans Cycles yesterday morning and the offside cat fits like a glove, with the nearside one wrapped and packaged within the same box.

Weight isn't too bad at under 19kg, but the dimensions are causing a real headache! 134x23x75cm means DPD and Parcelforce won't touch it. Best option I'm finding is via a UPS service, but the booking services themselves generally have appalling feedback. If I can arrange to drop it off at UPS tomorrow then I'll probably risk it, as it's about £30 against £75-100 (and even some of those services aren't available unless you're a business customer)

I think I'll need to book the return delivery too, as the company in Germany do mention that parcel length can be a problem (they use the German partner of Parcelforce Worldwide usually)

Almost tempted to get insured on my friend's Pug 306 diesel estate he's about to sell and just deliver the bloody things by car and wait around for a day!

Might it be worth the cost trade-off of cutting the over long pipe and then re-welding it on return?

Have you thought of driving the 8 there with tools etc. in the boot?
Take the cats off at the roadside, carry them in, wait & refit for the return journey.

They were already off the car before I realised how big the offside one is! They've gone now - UPS via 3rd party booking service for about £30. Dropped them off at the depot this morning so should arrive mid-week - not expecting to see them back till early next week.....