we could literally argue about this all night haha.

I dont see alot of people ing about tuned up diesels.

Shooting 30ft of soot into the air.

Ill stick with no cats

 

so does anyone know if she got it fixed ?? or are yah-all gonna snivvel about cat's??

 

Hmmmm "well, if them diesel boys get to shoot soot, why can't I?"

Most of the soot is heavier than air.

A catless truck will pump tons of unburnt HC fumes, tons of poisionous CO NOx into the air.

Cats are there for a reason and dominish hp by a factor of a millionth.

New units don't restrict airflow. The platinum grates are parallel to exh flow.

 

diesel is the only motor you can use underground ..no threat of explosion.and I have stood in the exhaust to warm up I do not belive al gore or the rest of the doom sayers with that said ..I have seen cars with blowers and high horse power meet all pollution levels with out cat' ..in my view cats are dangerous because of the heat they work at .and no way of being sure they are still working..if it is not required turf it ..stupid cost and better ways to achieve clean air

 

You can have all sorts of performance mods and still meet emissions requirements. My 69 Cadi passed for a 1976 Eldorado ON the sniffer! Does that mean my 69 Cadi without a catalytic converter is no more harmful to the atmosphere than the 76 Eldorado? Yes, by the standards. Why? because the standards that had to be met in 1976 were no where near as stringent as they are today and the technology was incapable of limiting emissions pollutants that well.

What people refuse to accept is that no internal combustion engine produces enough heat in the combustion cycle to rid the exhaust of the lighter-than-air pollutants that exist in it. Newer vehicles simply produce a small enough amount of exhaust and more accurately control recirculation to keep the amount of these pollutants below the maximum allowances set by the standards.

This is not a new debate... We have run the full gamut here and in the exhaust forum.

 

Thats just ignorant.

 

Ignorant? How? Anyone on these boards is going to have a vehicle that requires one. Whether or not you want one, it is a federal offense to remove it.

If you want to, that's your choice, but leave it at that, and don't go recommending illegal actions to others. Enough said, I'm done with this.

 

If you understand how a catalytic converter works, you know that there isn't an internal combustion engine in any vehicle built that would not see a reduction in emissions crud by employing one. Yes there are modern vehicles that run with enough efficiency that they do not require them to meet federal standards. However, even with that truth, internal combustion engines do not and cannot produce enough heat in the combustion cycle to rid the exhaust of the contaminants that are destroyed in the catalytic converter. It reaches temperatures and generates chemical reactions that neutralize contaminants that could not otherwise be removed. Ignorance is measured against real knowledge.

 

What comes out the tail-pipe doesnt make it a "better" engine.

 

I wasent bashing diesels by the way. If I had the money I would run one.

And if a cat dosent restrict airflow than pigs fly.

When there new Im sure they dont cause much of a performance reduction.

But over time they can get plugged and if that dosent cause power loss then what does.

Its like cigareets.

The more you smoke the better chance you have of getting lung canser. The longer you run a cat the greater powerloss you will have by carbon build up.

And yes Obviously over time a engine wears out.

My truck is 16 years old and has 100,000 miles on it. When the cats were gone there was a noticeable gain in power.

Its fuel injected to and my exsaust dosent smell like raw gas, so Im sure its not causeing that many problems

 

Define "better". Most modern engines will blow away the older units for BOTH emissions reduction AND performance. Not sure what your definition of better is but anything that produces less crap that kills us and the planet AND gets me from point A to point B the way I like to go is BETTER. What good is something that is all performance if it kills you in the process. The attitude that says "the only thing that matters is performance and screw the environment" is rapidly being considered a BAD attitude and it should be.

 

Good question in the original post.

Here are my thoughts: I had a '93 Bronco 5.8 which I bought new. Around 150K, it started missing under load and losing power going uphill. Replaced fuel pump and fuel filter and did a major tuneup - all at the dealer at great expense in reliance on their "expertise." No improvement. I noticed a clicking sound from the engine on the passenger side. I diagnosed that I had warped the passenger side exhaust manifold from heat backup from a clogged-up catalytic converter and that the passenger side exhaust manifold was the side that warped because the Y-pipe from the manifold to the cat is shorter on that side. Took it to an exhaust shop and they verfied my theory. That is when I bought OEM Ford Service Manuals for all my vehicles and started doing all my own repairs. (The only thing I won't attempt now is a transmission rebuild.) I replaced the manifold and Y-pipe with new cat attached and, guess what, the symptoms went away and the thing ran like a champ.

I now have a '95 Bronco to which I will be doing the same thing.

So, here's to new knowledge for an old thread for new people reading it for the first time.

BTW, I was once told "There are no stupid questions. Just stupid people asking questions." in response to a question I asked. But it hasn't stopped me questioning everything and respecting no one until they have actually earned my respect. Nobody gets the benefit of the doubt. Nobody.

 

What's with the poor attitude of all these newbs? Nobody is saying that you should take the word of Grey or Abandoned as gospel (mine YOU HAVE TO). Entering a conversation stating that others are ignorant isn't going to get you any positive feedback. Anyway, the cats are completely passive units, and they don't restrict or slow down the flow of the exhaust, so they DON'T have any effect on the performance. Of course, in time they can fail, and only then they will be affecting anything, just when they need to be replaced.

It isn't raw fuel what pollutes the most, it's all the unburn residues from the combustion proccess. And it only takes so many of those with your same attitude for it to start being a ecologic issue.

 

Encho, my friend, this issue will continue to be argued by every individual who refuses to learn how a catalytic converter works, why they are used, and they understand that being uneducated doesn't give them an excuse to screw with the air the rest of us breathe.

But until that time, we will have threads like these.

 

For the original poster - the "rotten egg smell" is an indication that your engine is running too rich, which makes the catalyst work too hard and subject it to failure.

It sounds to me like you have a diagnosable problem and the catalytic converter is a symptom, but maybe a symptom that has worked its' way into being its' own problem too.

There are lots of things that can cause this, in my case it was a sensor unplugged that made the computer think the engine was still cold. For a cold engine it changes to "rich" until it warms up. When we figured this out and plugged the sensor in everything ran perfectly. I hope your solution is just as easy.

Meanwhile, cats are a cheap technology that works. As I hope my daughter can grow up able to breathe I hope more people replace them responsibly and leave the removal to limited use vehicles. If you don't believe they work just stand behind a classic car idling at a show or something. Even if you pass a test without a cat it may well be that the test is not testing your cat function, just assuming that it is in place as it should be. I think only OBDII has before/after sensors to ensure the cats are working, earlier controls are assuming they are OK as failure is pretty rare.

Good luck,
- Jeff