Yeah, I know. But doesn't change the fact that Magnaflow is basically the only option that was large enough of a corporation to get a CARB EO number for their cats.

 

There is an easy way around visual inspection. My friends and I use to buy brand new cats as cheap as we could find, and get them 1/4 or 1/2 bigger than our exhaust. We would gut them then use a piece of pipe through the cat and welded near the factory seam on the cat. Nobody can tell any difference. Just gutting a cat does improve flow but also causes turbulence due to the cavity in the cat body. You can get cheap cats for like $50.