God, there's soooo many puns in that subject, that it's almost sickening! I'm such a funny guy!
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yeah, anyways...


So, my Y-pipe equipped, resonator omitted exhaust is making a weird pulsing noise right at the cat converter. Low-and-behold, my previous expertise in working with exhaust says my Cat Converter has decided to melt itself.

It makes perfect sense...110 degrees in Vegas, I drive it kinda hard, why wouldn't it?

So, I plan on gutting it tonite to rid myself of that horrid noise and to hopefully regain some top-end (and lose some bottom end in the process)...

Do any codes pop up on the 2000s when the exhaust is moving faster past the o2 sensor? How about smogging it? Will it not pass with no cats? any info would be helpful...

 

Gutting the cat isn't a very good idea because you will experience some nasty resonating due to the shape of the converter canister. Chances are you will loose power too due to the fact that the exhaust flow will resonate wildly in the canister. If your cat truely melted down then either the cat is bad or your car has some serious problems. Cat converters should have no problems operating in 110 degree weather because the cat itself operates at extreme temps (~900 degrees if memory serves me right).

I suggest getting a new cat from either RT, Catco, or Nissan. BTW, your cat should still be covered by the emissions warranty.


Dave

 

do you have fed spec emissions? gutting the cat or replacing it with a straight pipe will probably trigger a check engine light since you will have no cats in the exhaust at all. The light won't hinder performance though, but is annoying....

 

unless there's an O2 sensor after the main Cat, no codes will come up. The computer doesn't know if you have a cat or not if there are no O2 sensors to tell it the exhaust still has too much hydrocarbons in it or not. That's why the cali spec y pipes needs to keep the front precat to fool the ecu. cali spec has 4 O2 sensors, one before and one after the precat on each bank.

 

fed spec emissions has an o2 sensor after the main cat.... but no o2 sensors after the pre-cats....

 

yea, thought about that after I posted last night, one after each manifold and one after the main cat for Fed spec.. oops and there's no precats

 

i didn't look at the location of all the O2 Sensors... but..


did find out there's one on a elbow AFTER the main cat. Lo and behold... damn engine check light came on today heading to work. I'm beginning to really hate this car.

Maybe I can trade it in on a Solara V6...

 

you have fed spec emissions then... how about an RT cat? you don't want to get a Solara do you?

 

Dealer visit soon (after reinstalling stock parts of course)?

 

By looking at your sig pic and quote, I'm not sure why you hate the car. It sounds to me as if you are trying to blame Nissan for this problem. I'm almost certain the problems you're having are related to the fact that SCCA racing is extremely hard on any car. Going WOT, heavy brakes, WOT, etc will tax many parts of a car that wasn't designed for racing. I also read about many of your street racing battles too. You beat on it, be prepared to absorb some costs. It's just a fact of racing.


Dave

 

Yeah, I know whatcha saying...sometimes, I think I'm driving a sporty car...

 

If you think it soudns bad now.....wait till you gut it.....i know i have a 3rd Gen ,but your going to have a very un-clean exhaust note now, louder but you will hear all the turbulance in that gutted cat, not good for performance,plus your going to smell all the unburned exhaust which some people are not too fond of.....get yourself a str8 pipe or high flow cat and you will be happier JMO..................

 

Alright, dumb question:

i got the CE light going on... without disconnecting the battery, i do i get it to go away...and will it STAY away since I have a gutted main cat (and stock y-pipe back on)??

 

if you put the stock y-pipe back on and get rid of the cat, you will probably get rid of the light....