Hey guys,
My registration for my Maxima was due yesterday so I had my car smogged on Wednesday and it failed in 3 out of 6 sections. I thought the car wasn't warm enough, so I did it again on Saturday after a 120 mile drive. I also tried that "guaranteed emission passing" treatment and I lowered my octane to 89 (Motor Trend told me to use the lowest octane that won't cause knocking). I still failed the NO and the HC at 15 MPH. I paid $65 to have the car diagnosed and the technician was 99% sure it was the cat that went bad. All other readings were looking good.
My 97SE has 67K miles on it, a Stillen Y-pipe, intake, Stillen B-pipe, with the stock muffler. I bought an RT cat from Nick Stam about 2 years ago and never installed it. Now that my cat has gone bad, the technician said a new OEM cat would run $800+. I told him I'd try the RT. So I went for the install and noticed that the RT has a silver inside with some gold colored dust lightly coated around parts of the inside. When I pulled out the stock cat, it was completely black and had no gold stuff inside.
Is the RT cat still good? Should I run another smog test with the RT or will it just not pass? Any advice would be appreciated.
thanks...this is really frustrating.

 

I just passed a month ago with a 3 year old RT Cat, Stillen Y, and JWT Intake.

 

That's encouraging. I just finished installing it on my driveway (garage is a complete mess). We'll see if I pass tomorrow. But I can't understand how the stock cat went bad so fast. Could it be because of the Y-pipe. I passed with flying colors 2 years ago with my completely stock system. I'm thinking if anything, maybe I'm running rich. My exhaust tip is on the black side, as is my stock cat, but my bumper cover is perfectly white. Well...we'll see what happens tomorrow.

 

But barely...technician said that it probably won't pass in 2 years. I'm convinced there is something wrong with my Maxima that caused the stock cat to foul out. I'll get down to the bottom of it as I'll replace the O2 sensors, knock sensor, and EGR. I bought all these parts for really cheap off of eBay and I'll be sure to test each component as they are removed.

A side note, my car feels sooooo much more powerful and smooth with the RT cat. I'm not sure if it's because of the hi-flow character, or if its because my stock cat was bad. Regardless, I'm just pleased with the results.

 

I bet your stock cat was pretty close to clogged if it feels that different. I didn't notice too much of a difference with mine.