plugged cat?

[kr.k]

How to tell if one has a paritally plugged cat

 

[candela]

plugged with what...

 

[kr.k]

Originally posted by candela
plugged with what...

...with crap that comes out of the engine, and fills little holes in the cat untill it becomes useless..

 

[1994supertalon]

Take off the cat and see if the "little holes" are plugged
If your car is running poor slap a test pipe on there and see if things get better. That's how test pipes came to be back in the day, if a mechanic was suspicious of a clogged cat they would put in there "test pipe" and go run the car to see if that was actually the problem. Half the time the customers asked to have the "test pipe" left in because for some reason the car seemed to have more power

 

[candela]

well you said plugged... which means that its sealed whereas clogged is quite common with age. Might as well buy a complete 3" turbo back heh w/ test pipe of course =)

 

[Enraged78]

Easiest way is to just take it off and shine a flashlight through it. If you can't see the light, then you don't need the cat! That's the logic I used, anyway...

 

[DevilSperm]

and if its completely plugged youll have a top speed of about 30...or at least i did

 

[EROK81]

Originally posted by DevilSperm
and if its completely plugged youll have a top speed of about 30...or at least i did

Yep that'll hapen for sure. Another way is have someone rev it up to like ~2000 rpm and put your hand in front of the tail pipe. If it's REALLY hot coming out then your cats probably falling apart.

 

[kr.k]

Originally posted by candela
well you said plugged... which means that its sealed whereas clogged is quite common with age. Might as well buy a complete 3" turbo back heh w/ test pipe of course =)

sorry guys english is not my language...
but about the test pipe - what about the ECU and lambda sensor and that stuff? do you need to "fool" the ECU somehow or something so the air/fuel ratios stay correct etc.?

 

[Enraged78]

This is going to sound kind of strange, but it really depends on the car. Some early build '95's LOVE to throw the CEL (Like mine). The later builds of that year weren't so bad. 1G's had no downstream O2, so it didn't matter. 96's-99's depend on the year, some being more demanding than others. There are many tricks you can use to fool the second O2, from completely removing it and zip tying it, to putting foil around the sensor, to buying a 'resistor kit'.

Later,
Matt.