Hi all and thanks for the great advice on my previous post. I took the 01 to the local dealer to have them diagnose what exactly the problem was.
Cat was plugged, but to my surprise, they informed me that the cat was still covered under some special extended warranty. 10 yr/120k mile so I just slid in under the wire. They replaced it at no cost! But now I have to redo the u-bend delete since they replaced the whole downpipe. Small price to pay. Now I am glad I didn't just go to an exhaust shop and have them cut in a new cat. Thanks again

 

Yea I made a post about that about a month ago but about 2001-2002 3.8L engined cars having a "secret" extended warranty on cats. They always plug up too I've changed dozens before I knew about the warranty coverage and now I've saved people hundreds of $$$