I have been troubled by the dual-pipe/dual cat replacement in my '87 E150 van. The first cat has the 2 manifold pipes going into it and the O2 sensor mounts at the Y, and there's no easy replacement for that.

My cat's all broken up and rattling in the converter like it's full of pennies, probably due to past engine problems which have since been fixed, but also due to the fact that it's 23 years old. Engine's running fine now. I don't need any special high-performance gear here. No idea how the van passed the smog testing here with the broken cat it's got now, but it may be hurting my performance and mpg and I fear that thing breaking up completely and killing the engine.

I did find Eastern Catalytic's 30251:


Which replaces all the plumbing- and at $190 shipped, it's absurdly cheap. It's a clamp-together, no-welding, which is nice (almost essential) because I don't have a welder or MIG experience to do exhaust. I know they made a number of extra joints in there so it can be shipped disassembled to avoid absurdly high shipping costs. But, I'm concerned about leaks. Not that *I* care personally, I've had a huge honking crack through an exhaust manifold for a year now that I've been waiting to fix when doing the whole exhaust system. I'm not dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. The problem is the vehicle inspection people have dicked me around for any kind of black smear anywhere on the system in the past (yet they missed the fact that my exhaust manifold was cracked clean in two- hilarious).

Also, I'm in Austin, Tx where we have smog testing. Actually I've only got 1-2 more years until it's old enough that they drop the testing requirement, but failure of the smog test before then would be very problematic and I'd like to do this job now. So, "punching out the cat" with a pipe is not an option.

I did see the recycling value of the old two-stage cat system was exceptionally high. Enough that it would offset a significant amount of the cost of the NEW system, which also is a good reason not to punch out a cat and empty it. I think they said $70 cash for the old Ford type (mine being broken might not be as much). Yeah, we can do this if Eastern is "good".

Google says SOME people had problems with Eastern... but someone always says something. One said the bolts didn't line up because something welded clocked it about 5 deg off. Not sure what that was about, the model I'm looking at seems to be free-floating flanges, maybe they had a different type. Another said the cat was putting out weird soot and got a replacement based on an explanation that this was accidentally an old-stock cat made in the pre-ethanol-blended-fuel age. WTF?? I wasn't aware of ethanol changing the cat requirements, nor why Eastern would be sending out something very old.

I tried to find the Magnaflow equivalent, but... OMG, if I read that right, their kit's way over $500 because of this vehicle's difficult exhaust plumbing. Not gonna happen.

Is the Eastern stuff basically OK? For places which test emissions?

 

Hmm, I may have looked up the Magnaflow wrong. I see this system is $225.77 w/free shipping (about the same $):



So how does Magnaflow compare to Eastern?

 

Well, seems people more frequently speak highly of Magnaflow, and their mandrel-bent tubing doesn't have the flow-inhibiting creases shown in the Eastern part.

However, I didn't see a bung for the O2 sensor. I talked to Magnaflow and the support guy said the 93314 I'm looking at is right, didn't think there was an O2 bung there, which is a significant problem! Pulled the "I only know what book tells me and can't explain more". The '87 E150 uses a single O2 sensor bung'ed into a small pipe right before the two sides Y together. It does appear in the Eastern Catalytic picture.

I'm not sure how Magnaflow can call that a direct replacement if it requires modification via welding!?
This can't be right- Magnaflow is supposed to know their stuff, the product looks better built, the O2 sensor is a requirement for a large span of years, you can't leave it off, so... why would Magnaflow not include the required O2 bung?? Somebody should have said something before now!