As you may recall, I had a horrendous rattle in my '96 exhaust system and, based on the stainless-steelness of the existing Flying Miata catback and a little judicious malleting, decided the cat was the culprit. Since the dealer wanted $500+ for a replacement cat, I got good advice here and found a $109 replacement cat at Moss Motors.
I ordered the cat and 2 gaskets on Aug 15, and on the 20th the cat and one gasket arrived. Dunno how they decided I only needed one, since there's two pipes. I got on the phone and they sent another gasket (no shipping charge) the next day. Maybe they should have charged shipping, since UPS now needed
12 days to get it to me (partly due to their creative delivery schedule; e.g. "will try Monday after 5:00" actually means Tuesday at 3:00, etc.).Today the dealer installed it ($58 labor, not too bad - I woulda done it but having a lift makes it a lot easier). There is still a much much smaller rattle in the front resonator, but most of the racket is gone - workable for now. The exhaust note is basically unchanged, perhaps about .037db louder. And an interesting hopefully temporary smell. Performance seems the same. Unit looks exactly the same.
Thanks to those who pointed me to Moss. I'm happy with the cat; just make sure they get your quantities right and ship with someone other than UPS.
miker