I am in the market for a new truck and have been looking at the older diesels. I have heard rumor that the 02 and 03 F-250 XLT package came without converters. Is this true and why.

 

You will find that nearly all of the trucks with automatics do not have a catalytic converter. Ford in their designs and computer programing must have come up with a way to meet emission standards back then without them.

 

Does my 00 Manual have a Cat? If so where is it cause ive never seen one. Also im still not in full understanding of the Turbo routing and how it flows. I dont even understand the Turbo Back system and Bellowed Up pipes?

 

Not all of the manual trucks had cats.

The exhaust exits the engine from the manifolds through the up-pipes. These collect the exhaust and route it to the turbo. Once it spins the turbine wheel it exits through the exhaust system.

The turbo back system is the down pipe, exhaust tubing (cat if installed) then to the muffler and out the pipe.

The bellowed up pipes are an upgrade to the up pipes Ford put on, They are made by International and are used on there T444E engine, which is the same engine as the 7.3L. Ford use 7.3L and International uses T444E but they are essentially the same. The up pipes Ford put on use exhaust donuts on pipes to seal the pipe and to allow for flexing as well as expansion and contraction , the bellowed ones use a bellowed section like a flexible straw to account for flex.

 

well put Woodn, I tried to rep ya but I need to "spread it around"

 

You can look under your hood to find out if your truck came with a cat. There is an emissions label on the roof of my hood since my truck is from CA but there is another label on the side of your valve cover. I wanna say it will say "OC" if your truck came with a cat. Can someone confirm that?

 

Appreciate the thought, that is all that counts!

 

Thanks for the responses. @ woodnthings, do you know what year trucks with manual transmissions didnt have cats?

 

All year trucks with the ZF6 came with cats from Ford. L99 and up trucks with 4R100's did not have cats. E99 trucks with 4R100's had cats.

Stewart

 

Correct. The best way to determine if your truck came with a catalyst originally is to look at the passenger side valve cover. This is what the inspectors look at here in Arizona when we take our trucks for emissions. "OC" stands for "Oxidation Catalytic Converter". Here is a good link Glossary of Automotive Acronyms .: Articles

My truck does not have a cat so "OC" is missing from the sticker.

 

Most '03 trucks that I've seen have a catalyst but not all. This is probably due to my region. Here in Arizona, there are quite a few nice 7.3 trucks on the market but you have to beware because a lot of them just came from California and most of them have "OC" on the valve cover. Some are probably repo trucks but others are here because they can not longer get them to pass emissions in California and traded them in.

We have quite a few 7.3 trucks in our work fleet and it appears that most all the California trucks have catalysts. Most of our Arizona trucks do not have a cat but there are 1 or 2 exceptions. Speaking with our fleet manager, he seemed to recall that Navistar 7.3 engines passed emissions in all 50 states without needing a catalyst but there was some problem with California regulations that required a cat anyway. Ford battled this for a while (because it costs much more to equip the trucks with a cat) but they eventually began shipping California trucks with a cat while other states got trucks without cats. To complicate matters worse, California has some sort of agreement with the EPA or CARB or someplace similar that required trucks bound for Arizona or Nevada to receive catalysts by default. This was supposed to deter folks who would cross the state line to buy a vehicle and then take it back to California and register it there. However, this was not mandatory so Ford mailed out a bulletin to these dealerships informing them that they merely needed to delete the cat when they filled out the order form. Of course this saved a bit of money on the base price of these trucks so most dealerships in Arizona and Nevada chose to delete the cat and take the credit when choosing the options on each truck.

My guess is that Ford preferred to ship these trucks without cats to save on the initial cost of the truck and save on warranty repairs. They probably only installed cats depending on the region where they were shipped. Seems logical to me. So, what you are looking for is a valve cover sticker that does not have "OC" on it. Just make sure it matches the model year for your truck and you should be good. Valve covers are getting hard to find. We got lucky and found 4 of them at a local diesel repair shop.

Hope this helps.