My girlfriend and I were running around town, and all the sudden I noticed that my car had lost all its power. I couldn't notice it until I gave the car about half throttle, but once I did there was just nothing there. The car would kinda lurch forward.

So I got into a parking lot and popped the hood. Earlier in the weekend the intake seperated from the TB and 'cause the MAS to not read any incoming air, and the car stalled, so I thought that maybe they were related. Nope, the intake and MAS look just fine.

So I listened closly and I could hear a different hissing from the exhaust than I was used to. I got under the car and my girlfriend revved it, but I couldn't hear or feel any leaks.

At this point I was starting to think that I had fallen victim to the Cattman Y-Pipe curse. Damn it. I call my dad who was thankfully home and go over to use his garage. I get the car up on stands and unbolt the y-pipe from the cat. Get a flashlight and look into the Y-Pipe and its looks prefect. No problem. WTF!

So I turn the other way and look into the cat and notice something interesting, it was hallow! So I unbolt the cat from the b-pipe, and sure enough, there was nothing at all in the cat. Furthermore, I looked into the b-pipe and right before the resonater is a chunk of the cat material.

I take off the entire exhaust (Apexi Cattback was nice for this...it's in 3 sections) and clean it out. Put it back together (with the gutted cat) and start it up. Go for a spin and its perfect!

How the hell could the material in the cat break up? This is a RT cat, and it was quite used. Maybe 70k miles or so, but I've never heard of anything like this happening. I can only assume it was a combo of age and bumps, 'cause I went over a few killer bumps that could have done it I guess.

Strange...So now I have a gutted cat that I wasn't planning on having. I'm in the process of getting a test pipe, so I guess I'll be selling a gutted cat in a few weeks.

 

That's very interesting. I'm glad you figured out the problem. Hopefully the rest of the "brick" isn't lodged in other places of the pipe too.


Dave

 

Nah, I got it all. Took the entire exhaust off, vacumed it and snaked it. Its clean. Just a pain in the ****. I'm trying to think of it as an "unintentional performance mod".