Center brace interfering with exhaust

[firefox360]

Recently I had a set of Kleemann headers and cats installed on the car and started to notice a "knocking" sound when going over certain bumps. Looking underneath the car, it seems like the kit lowered the exhaust system slightly and now the piping between the secondary cats and the resonator is resting on-top of what appears to be a brace of some sort, and this seems to be the source of the noise. I've searched around here and I've seen some posts where people have simply removed the "beam" all together and I've also heard of people adding in spacers to lower it. Is this piece important to the structure of the body or is it something that I can just remove? I've included pictures below to describe what I'm talking about,

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[BAD430BENZ]

if you look at those same threads and read into it , you will see that most people just removed that piece and that it's not a support brace .

[khalidC63]

hi there firefox360 im facing the same issue with my car can you please tell me what you did ?

[Merc63]

I tried spacers on mine it worked for a bit till the exhaust moved agained. Got annoyed and removed it.

No problems since

[Jason888]

I'd have concerns of reduced safety in the circumstance of an car accident such as being "T-boned" when removing a large piece of steel like that from the car, even with the generous amount of airbags fitted to the vehicle.

[c63edition1]

shoulda gone with agency power, there system bends to accommodate this brace :P .. on a more serious note though, ive been told that this brace is only there to hold the exhaust system close to the car if my some divine miracle it snaps off completely and falls, as opposed to hitting the road directly

[firefox360]

Well, I ended up removing it myself which solved the issue for me. The process wasn't difficult; I lifted the car up on a set of ramps, crawled underneath, lowered the plastic under trays on either side, and from there it was a matter of undoing the 4 T-50 Torx screws holding it on.

From what I could see, it doesn't seem like the bar serves as a brace considering the parts that it's bolted to. I really doubt it would affect anything in the case of an accident. More likely as c63edition1 has said, it's just there in case something happens to the exhaust system.

[clichere1]

I took it off and everything is normal