My car was making a funny rattling noise and I found it to be my catalytic converter. The honeycomb broke up and is rattling around. I've put less than 10,000 miles on this Magnaflow high-flow cat. Thankfully, I only paid $85 for it. I was curious though about two things.

1) Is this the normal life I should expect from this cat?
2) Is my running a TS upgraded ECU a factor in my cat failing under 10K miles?

~THT

 

well i have over 116000 miles on my car and when i took out my cat to install a racing street pipe, it seemed fine to me. call the company, ask for a refund or something

 

Where was the rattling heard, against walls or just driving normally? I have a hi-flow cat and I get a strange rattling, tin-can sound.

 

i had that prob, for me, its hard to describe it but it kinda holds the pipe to the hanger and has 2 holes for the screws, looks like a plate but L shaped. when my car started, turned off or went over bumps, that plate was always tapping into something else so i took it off.

 

It would be heard anytime my RPMs were below 3,000, especially when I would take my foot off the gas.

~THT

 

Same happened to me. All performance cats are a waste of money. Substrate came loose and rattled all to hel!. I tried to get a refund from CM but never got anywhere with it. Just another reason CM is a sh!tty company.

 

Wow, yours lasted a year. Mine lasted 2 weeks, both of them. Best thing is, cat converters don't come with warranty. I'm planning on cutting it apart, putting in a brace to hold the honey comb in place and weld it back together. Anyone got a welder?

 

hi flow cats are known for this. honestly you don't gain much with a high flow. i'd either run stock or a straight pipe.

 

I should remove mine tomorrow and check the interiors of it to make sure its still intact.

 

The only reason I got mine is because of the foul smell the stock one was making.
Superlative, if you don't hear rattling while parked or in neutral, I wouldn't bother taking it off. Once it breaks though you will hear it.

 

Dave, can I pass IL emissions testing with a straight-pipe?

~THT

 

See that happen to me also and I didnt do anything about it. So one day I took off the cat and it was completely gudded out. ( It was almost like a straight pipe.)

 

I can't answer as far as the testing goes because we have non here. It is my impression that if the car is OBD-II they only hook up to it to get a read. I have mine straight piped and I get no codes. If they only go by the OBD codes then you'll be fine. But when the car smells like that they'll know something is up.

 

so bottom line what do you guys think would be a better thing to put in place of the stock cat a straight pipe.?

 

I have a Random technology hi flow cat and no problems so far! Had it for 2 months now, oh yeah it's still in the box! No wonder!

Seriously... any have problems with the RT cats??

 

Yeah, no problem. They only hook it up to the OBD2 scanner so as long as you have no codes or haven't reset the ECU in the past few days you'll pass.

 

i must say i like the sound of mine and my buddies stock cats over high flow and racing pipes, we bought and tested out both on our cars. in the end the stock cat made the best sound. no worries about emisions and power increase/decrease was within 1-3hp....

 

Yeah, Broaner's Random Tech cat died in under a year.

 

Ouch! Anyone else with a Random tech?

 

ya i got one but i put it in about 2-3 months ago and so far so good
i think ive only got 2k on it right now