Ya, I figured it was related to emissions, hence the big price
There is a wire that goes to it and a 1 inch diameter rubber line that appears to go to the exhaust manifold.
As for the emissions goes, the car still has to go through emissions and since the car is pre 1996, they do the old up the tail pipe test. So I do run the risk of it failing. I know that they do check to ensure that there is a cat. installed, but I don't know that they check under the hood for the other emission related stuff.