They are actually cut out completely. I took it to a shop and the guy cut them behind the first O2 and behind the back cat, bent the pipe, and rewelded the bung.

 

Just wanted to update the status of this issue as soved!

PROBLEM SOLVED
The dealership diagnosed the issue as clogged catalytic converters. I had a local shop cut out both front and rear cats and reweld o2 bungs so I could keep the sensors. Although noise was an issue, the engine problems were solved! The noise issue was resolved with a cherry bomb glasspack followed by a Dynomax Superturbo muffler.

No codes have been thrown at all. No more lean bank, no code detecting the cats gone.

 

so you put in two mufflers with no cats?

 

Yeah. I figured that since both have a straight pipe design, I'm not building any signifigant back pressure. I wanted a quiet setup and even though the dynomax is supposed to be one of the quietest, it had that loud bapbapbapbap sound at WOT and between 1900 and 2100 RPM.


The cherry bomb cured that! Even better, I can drop the dynomax by removing one clamp and just going throuogh the cherry bomb.

There's an idea...I need to find an exhaust cutout so I can enjoy the cherry bomb without having to get under the truck.