My cat converter has had it, its leaking, sounds horrible, and the shield is falling off. Beings that I have an 84, I no longer need the cat for inspection so its time for it to go, and replace it with straight pipe. If I rip it out, I understand I would have to pull the smog too right since it connects to the cat. Would removing the cat and smog pump affect the engine and the computer negatively? I'm afraid how everything will react. Would I have to do the duraspark conversion too? Any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated.

Mine has the smog of it,but still has the cat but I don't think it affects anything in the end. I might add that people in this forum don't reply to questions much they just look and move on

Most likely you would have to rip out all the smog equipment, and convert to Duraspark, but I can't say for sure. My dad did it on my truck over 15 years ago, and he didn't care about smog. The truck just wasn't running right and he knew more about the Duraspark II system. Check out Therangerstation.com, they're a little better about the 2.8Ls.

On my 85 I took the cat off but left the smog pump on and its been that way now for 2-3 years and is running fine.

it will run fine my old 84 that had the 2.8 i sliced it out and put a straight pipe and never touched anything els drove it like that for over a year before i sold it

I guess enjoy the ozone while we still have it.