Congrats on the install and the products do look sweet.
Do you have specs on the cats by any chance? Also, any CEL? Was the catback changed or is it stock?

 

Did it get louder?

 

From my experience it did but every minimal nothing like adding a cat back or full exhaust. You mostly notice it while accelerating but at idle and cruising its not really noticeable at all. Its also IMO a pleasant deep throaty(for a v6) exhaust sound and is very addictive.

 

I've had the RV6 j-pip and HFPC's for a little over 3yrs now and love them. Put some 91 or 93(we only have 93 around here) octane in it and it will make it feel so much better. I really can't drive my truck with 87 anymore its just so sluggish and the throttle response is terrible. The 93 helps a lot by bumping timing and gives much quicker throttle response and IMO the response down low in the rpm's with these mods is much much better than stock. The truck actually feels like it has some low end TQ with these mods and it seems to have some pretty good gains in the upper RPMs as well. Hands down a great mod for our trucks.

 

This may be wrong, but a friend told me that you're supposed to put 91/93 octane in for towing and apparently ECU gives you more torque. Where I'm pretty sure 90% of vehicles will not have any difference if you put higher grade fuel in them, it seems like the Ridgeline actually was designed to. This makes sense, because Honda knew they'd sell more of these if they said it took regular gas vs premium. They also knew people would always want more power, so they gave us the option.

 

No CEL at this point and I’ve put about 300 miles on since install, not sure about the cat specs.
The exhaust does have a slightly louder note but nothing crazy, the 3rd cat is still there but I’m considering deleting it. I’ll take a video and post it for all to hear.

 

@Ironwood Nice write up. Looking forward to seeing (hearing) the video, but I do believe @Jonb is correct, running premium will awaken the engine some more.

Unsure if you want to sell the parts removed, but check out this thread: WTB 06-08 J-pipe OEM

 

Yeah, just had the cats installed a week ago and was a bit disappointed that mpg and general accel didn’t improve much if any. Had a bad cat with high mileage so they were needed regardless and the price is decent. Also replaced all the 02 sensors since they were original with 220k on them. All four of them cost more than the cats. A new set of plugs and air filter too. Still seems pretty much the same, which is still going quite strong considering the mileage, but still only getting about 16 mpg on average. WOT power is still great (for what it is) and lets face it; a few hp on a 4000+ lbs vehicle isn’t going to be that noticeable. Fortunately just a truck when I need one. If it were my daily driver that would not make me happy. Sort of glad I didn’t spring for the j-pipe though.

Regarding the 3rd cat, it failing and falling out in pieces on its own rather than being intentionally deleted is likely to make more sense financially, but of course that would need to happen on it’s own somehow. Cannot recommend altering the emission system due to the obvious liability issues. Unlike the pre-cats its not monitored though. So when it fails, falls apart, etc. there’s no detection by the system. Essentially it’s only purpose is to clean up anything that gets past the pre-cats. Which if you have a bad pre-cat a properly functioning emission system will detect and flag for repair.

Pretty much, if you need a cat might as well go for them (the other one is not far behind before it fails too, trust me), but no need really to swap them out for any other reason otherwise imo. These cats are 200 cpi. Originals are probably 400 cpi or more. Maybe a touch louder than original, especially on cold startup, but not in any way annoying, boomy, etc. Regular driving you won’t notice, just punching it and not much then even.

.

 

Thanks for all the feedback guys next fill up I’m definitely going to try 93 and see how it goes. I put a link to a video of the exhaust, RV6 high flow pre cats, RV6 J pipe and everything else is stock, truck is already warmed up.
https://youtu.be/pwHmDClHLPI

 

Any updates with 93 octane fuel?

 

Yes I’ve run 2 full tanks of 93 octane and the truck is noticeably smoother and a bit quicker as well. I’m about to install a 3.7 IM and throttle body and I’ll return with an update.

 

No AWD Dyno necessary, FWD after 18mph...

Why bother baseline, we should be able to trust the manufacturer data?

 

I agree, once the 3.7 IM and throttle body have been installed I’ll look into a dyno run