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Yes plugged cats will cause temp issues. Usually an exhaust shop can pressure test them. But if after a drive it is a furnace under the car that is usually an indicator
The one thing that concerns me is they do smell alittle bit after a drive. I at first thought that was because they were new but Im beginning to wonder now. I'm worried that they may be regular cats and not hi-flow.
Welp.. ..motor is coming out today... exhaust shop who installed my cats and fixed the rattles wielded all the connections on my headers, cats, and true duals.... and they all have to be cut apart. Its sounding as though my entire exhaust system is going to be trash after they remove it meaning I may have to buy a whole new exhaust from header to tail pipe... That was an over the axle true dual system as well...not thrilled to say the least. Spoke to the exhaust shop and of course they blameshifted stating that they should beable to re-wield the connections after re-piecing the exhaust and they don't use band clamps unless the exhaust comes with it.. They should have used band clamps. My only option is to possibly file a claim on my CC for it. I'm debating on that but I'm unsure how it will hold up since the exhaust shop can technically come back and say it was a proper install given what they had to work with.
Last edited by Need4Camaro; Sep 8, 2020 at 12:16 PM.
This is what they found regarding the Head Gaskets. Everything looks like it matched up except It looks like in the back, one of the cooling channels was partially blocked in near the rear cylinder .. only one on each bank though. Do you think this would have been enough to have caused the overheating?
Yeah, that feed hole being partially blocked isn't helping anything. I would also do the cooling mod on head gaskets to feed additional coolant on the exhaust side too (especially if you plan to push the combo w/ forced induction in the future). Curious - are you paying someone to do the diagnostic work? A good test plan should pin point what the root issue is. Paying to try different things is a bummer.
Yeah, that feed hole being partially blocked isn't helping anything. I would also do the cooling mod on head gaskets to feed additional coolant on the exhaust side too (especially if you plan to push the combo w/ forced induction in the future). Curious - are you paying someone to do the diagnostic work? A good test plan should pin point what the root issue is. Paying to try different things is a bummer.
What is the cooling mod on the head gaskets? I looked into it but couldn’t find. Yeah I am paying. I was basically trying everything else I could before removing the headgaskets given the much larger difference in costs but I ran out of options before pulling the heads.
The Head Gasket seemed to help some but didn't completely stop the issue. It is taking longer for it to overheat, however; it turns out the problem appears to be my drivers side cat which is getting very hot while going down the road. It turns out they are not Hi-Flo cats, just regular cats with honeycombs. They're going to be removed for now until I can get it back to the exhaust shop to put Hi-Flo cats on there.
The Head Gasket seemed to help some but didn't completely stop the issue. It is taking longer for it to overheat, however; it turns out the problem appears to be my drivers side cat which is getting very hot while going down the road. It turns out they are not Hi-Flo cats, just regular cats with honeycombs. They're going to be removed for now until I can get it back to the exhaust shop to put Hi-Flo cats on there.
Got her back today. I drove it home (didn’t use the A/C - it was actually a fairly mild day here in Texas for once.) temp never climbed above 198* and it drove pretty nice. I’m going to address the catalytic converters tomorrow.
Welp, I thought my trouble was over but it seems its only beginning. I drove it from Austin to DFW to go to Summit to purchase V-Clamps so I could have the catalytic converters properly connected onto my exhaust. The coolant 'gauge' never came close to 210, it stayed well below it. Yesterday while driving without the A/C on it never went over 198* I didn't turn the A/C on because I knew it would overheat if I did. It didn't -seem- to overheat per the gauge but when I got back, both the upper and lower radiator hoses were pouring coolant out of the connection ports to the water pump and thermostat. The clamp looked pretty secure on both but coolant was seeping between the hose and the metal port and dripping pretty bad. Now of course with it dripping, the exhaust shop believes its a coolant issue.. ..Even still they are now stating the cat that is on there is a high-flow cat and they don't have any that flow better...and cannot take the catalytic converter off. I'm worried I may have warped a head gasket causing a cooling jacket to clog back pressuring the cooling system to the decree of pushing coolant out of the weakest links.. I'm not getting white smoke though and it still rev's just fine. On my drive to the exhaust shop (about 20 miles freeway) it never went above 198... ...so it didn't overheat atleast, but I also didn't use the A/C.
I'm going to have the coolant system pressure tested tomorrow, that and recheck the radiator hoses. For the catalytic converter I may need to find a different exhaust shop.
I would have guessed it has air in the system still but you said it never got hot which is usually a symptom of stuck air.
idk this car is driving me insane. I love it but I hadnt intended to throw so much into this swap and unfortunately its getting the better of me. Im pretty sure LSX Power Tuning bled it properly, they used a machine and they were pretty thorough with that given how much trouble we were having with it... ...I dunno maybe its cursed or something.
Hopefully its not headgaskets, thats my biggest fear. If its not then its no huge deal.. ...the only other thing I would have to worry about is that catalytic converter.
Can you not just buy bullet mufflers that look like cats and use band clamps to mount them. Looks like you have cats and they're hollow?
only problem would be getting a shop to install them, one of my cats is literally welded onto the header and I’d have to get it cut off which most shops aren’t willing to do I’m finding. I’ll see tomorrow I guess. I could drive all the way back to Brenham and go to the exhaust shop LSX Power Tuning was going to take it to. They were busy at the time and I thought my exhaust shop was going to make right but I think they are going to give me a runaround. I’m praying the coolant spraying is just hoses leaking or something. I can’t tell that is by far the weirdest issue I have ever seen. It’s run much hotter (in the 240’s) before I took it in for the head gaskets and it never did anything like that... and it didn’t seem to overheat this go round either.
