Help with U Bend

Please tell me that my muffler shop is full of it. I live in PA and my muffler shop told me that they by law cannot touch the U bend becuase it is part of the Cat. The also said that if they did touch it and move the O2 sensor to the side it would put it in the air path and cool it to the point where my car would run like sh*t due to false readings. First of all is it legal in PA to remove the U Bend and would the new placement of the O2 sensor cause any issues?

the u-bend should be legal to remove. but i was planning on stopping at a shop tonight to double check and make sure with the new pa emission laws if it is legal to remove it as well as the 2nd o2 sensor. the car will run with the removal of the 2nd o2 sensor as long as a spoofer is bought and attached to the car. all this sensor does is to monitor how well the cat is running. i believe it has nothing to do with a/f ratio or any other operations. i'll let you know what i find out.

I can't offer any insight about PA's emission laws but I can tell you that moving the secondary 02 sensor into "The air path" (as they called it) will not cause your GP to run poorly.

That's a new one on me. I got a different excuse from the guys at Midas. They felt that replacing the U-bend would make the O2 sensor more vulnerable to damage from debris due to the new exposed position. This is true theoretically, but I have never read of anyone complaining of such damage. They were concerned with liablility.