Cat's Clogged - Best Option?
Staging Lane
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
From: GA
My passenger side cat is doing this also. I was wondering if it will do any damage to just leave it. I'm planning on getting lts and tds soon anyways, I just need to get some money saved up. Will it eventually just blow out the back? Or will it clog up the exhaust and screw something up? Don't want to mess something up because of a pos cat.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Originally Posted by noname024
My passenger side cat is doing this also. I was wondering if it will do any damage to just leave it. I'm planning on getting lts and tds soon anyways, I just need to get some money saved up. Will it eventually just blow out the back? Or will it clog up the exhaust and screw something up? Don't want to mess something up because of a pos cat.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Staging Lane
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
From: GA
Originally Posted by 98Z28MASS
Nope no damage that I know of. I had Dez Racing gut my cats and the rest blew out when it was on the dyno. It just some packing material so i cant see it causing any damage. The worst case it might damage whatever muffler you have back there but my buddies cat blew out and it did no harm to his borla adjustable catback. If its clogged thats another issue and that would cause you to lose some power.
There really is no damage that can occur. If the brick seperates from the case it is going to rattle and some small pieces/dust will break off and travel down to the muffler. Depending on what type of muffler you have it may go through or it may get caught up in it. At the time I had a Flowmaster system and it definateltly got caught up in there due to the muffler design. I had to remove it to shake it out the best I could. I have since changed to a MagnaFlow and by the design only a small portion of the debris could have gotten into the muffler packing through the perforations in the muffler/internal tubing. I have seen engines that have such a bad cat that it wouldn't even start. This was mostly on engines with only (1) cat being fed by (4) or (6) cylinders. If the cat was bad enough I think you may see some performance loss and again depending on how bad, in some situations it may cause misfires on that particular bank. In my opinion if you think it is bad and have less then the 80K and the car is 8 years old or newer try and get it replaced under the Federal Emissions Warranty. (especially if you do not plan on doing longtubes). Just my opinion...
Staging Lane
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
From: GA
Originally Posted by Cakes
There really is no damage that can occur. If the brick seperates from the case it is going to rattle and some small pieces/dust will break off and travel down to the muffler. Depending on what type of muffler you have it may go through or it may get caught up in it. At the time I had a Flowmaster system and it definateltly got caught up in there due to the muffler design. I had to remove it to shake it out the best I could. I have since changed to a MagnaFlow and by the design only a small portion of the debris could have gotten into the muffler packing through the perforations in the muffler/internal tubing. I have seen engines that have such a bad cat that it wouldn't even start. This was mostly on engines with only (1) cat being fed by (4) or (6) cylinders. If the cat was bad enough I think you may see some performance loss and again depending on how bad, in some situations it may cause misfires on that particular bank. In my opinion if you think it is bad and have less then the 80K and the car is 8 years old or newer try and get it replaced under the Federal Emissions Warranty. (especially if you do not plan on doing longtubes). Just my opinion...
Originally Posted by noname024
Thanks for all the info. I'd look into the warranty but my car's a 98 and has 87k miles on it. I got the stock muffler on it still but seeing as how I have a cutout I don't think any pieces would get to the muffler. I'll probably just end up gutting them to get rid of the irritating noise. Is it possible to just do one? I don't feel like doing both if I don't have to.
Its possibel although i dont know what gains would be had as there will be two different rates of exhaust gas flow with only 1 cat gutted. I say do both adn be done with it. Also, to answer your question above you just keep smashing till all the packing material comes out. You can do it with anything but most people use a narrow crowbar.
Staging Lane
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
From: GA
Originally Posted by 98Z28MASS
Its possibel although i dont know what gains would be had as there will be two different rates of exhaust gas flow with only 1 cat gutted. I say do both adn be done with it. Also, to answer your question above you just keep smashing till all the packing material comes out. You can do it with anything but most people use a narrow crowbar.
I think it's official.
Sorry Renegade. 
Tech Resident
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 5,117
Likes: 3
From: Philly
Originally Posted by Renegade
Cakes: I've spoke with our local GM Dealer and they said they haven't heard of anything like that, my car only has 72k on it so I figured something would be able to be done like you said but it's looking like I'm SOL.
that is such a lie. i just got a notice from GM a few months ago. they have EXTENDED the warranties on our stock cats. they are now warranted for 10 years or 120,000 miles. go get it replaced for free. besides, your exhaust will sound like raspy **** if you gut the stock cats. it doesn't just make it louder. it destroys the tone quality (makes it much less refined).
i see you have a magnaflow. they get very raspy with LT's and an ORY. if you hate rasp, you'll be disappointed by drop in sound quality gutted cats give.
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Take the stock y-pipe off, and throw it in the trash. Then put an off road one in with 02 sims and problem solved. Or do what I am going to do. Headers, off road y and have them tune the rear 02's out.
Staging Lane
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
From: GA
Yah, I was thinking about getting an ORY with the lts, but figured it'd be too raspy and make it sound like crap. I was just going to gut the cats and have it temporarily like that until i could get the lts and tds. But then again...I haven't listened to any sound clips on ls1sounds with an ORY and lts. Looks like I got some listening to do.
