Hi everyone, I have a '02 Edge 3.0L. So far as looks I have given it a lift (fab-tech), and put on 31x10.50's. For performance I have added an afe intake, and a Dyno-max cat-back. Since I have owned it (may '02) I have always thought that Ford's engineers should be taken into the streets and beaten with shoes for producing such a weak motor. Don't get me wrong, I love my truck. But if my dad's Honda can make 240HP with a 2.0 4 cylinder, then Ford sure should be able to get a 3.0 V6 to make a little more than 154 at the crank! Well, now that I have that out of my system, here's the questions:

1. I have noticed that my truck was equipped with five, count 'em, five catalytic converters. That’s nonsense. I had planed to remove this entire section from the exhaust and fabricate my own down/y pipe with just one or two high flow cats (these sections would be interchangeable for smog tests). I was about to do this when a guy at the local shop said it would be bad for the engine due to lack of back pressure. I understand that a motor needs a certain amount of back pressure, but five cats worth of it? Is this true? Any suggestions would be helpful.

Question number 2:

Are there any hidden tricks or secrets to getting decent power out of this engine? I had been planning to do several things, electric fan, performance chip, larger MAS, jet thermostat, racing radiator, eventually even a Whipple supercharger. But as of late I have begun to question wether or not it would be more cost effective to just jam a 5.0 or a 351W in there. The cost of all those bolt-ons would nearly equal the cost of the new engine, minus the parts needed for the swap of course. Does anyone have any ideas? Also, could someone direct me to someone or someplace that would detail what would actually be needed for this kind of swap.

Thanks everyone.

 

If you remove the cats you'll fail emissions, and get a CEL, you can also get a nice fine $$$.

 

I know that, but emisions aren't an issue. I simply want to know if it will damage the engine or not. Thanks for the quick reply though.

 

The only thing that would concern me is how the PCM will handle the error from the monitor O2 (one after the cats), anyone have any thoughts.

 

I suspect it will drop into Limp mode. (HLOS?. Hardware limited operation straightly < I think>) and you will see a drop in power.
Dave

 

Removing the cats entirely will trip a CEL, but there shouldn't be any adverse effects to the engine. I ran an off-road X pipe on my 99 Mustang GT and had no problems apart from the CEL.

As long as you install at least one cat in the system in front of the last O2 sensor in the exhaust stream, you shouldn't have any problems. Most of these high flow cats do just as good of a job reducing emissions as the factory pieces, so you shouldn't have to swap the factory pipe back in to pass emissions.

 

Ok, thats a start. What's a "CEL"?

 

Check Engine Light