Hey all, I'm trying to eliminate my cats as my possible problem with how crappy my car runs, can I take it off for a 5 minute drive, or will it run just as horribly with no pipe/o2's?

Thanks

 

If you have long tubes i would say it would be ok.. but no not if you dont have headers, shortys or mids.. no.. long tubes would be pushing it.. backfire from hell.. and with shortys could be dangerous.. the cold air coming back towards the motor could hurt it badly..

 

I say DONT do it. Your rear O2's will go nuts and it wont prove anything. Plus its possible it would backfire flames out under the hood ...

My car was OBD1, so when I did my long tubes I drove around with open headers a few times ( Total of about 10-15 miles ) Did no harm, was obnoxiously loud ( The way I Like It ), and was incredibally hard to diagnose any strange noises )

However, if you did an OBD1 conversion, or have rear O2 sims, unbolt that bitch and give it a try ... If the car is progressively getting less and less power and can barely move itself, it has somewhat higher mileage ( Say over 70 ) then id say the Cat is a good possibiltiy

 

Alright, I won't do it...but is there any other way to test and see if the cats are bad?

 

pull the o2s out of the pipe and see how it runs, if it doesn't warm up and go into closed loop, the o2s are not used

 

My y-pipe for my Mac's didn't fit right, I had to run mine about 10 miles to te muffler shop, i unplugged 02's for the trip .

 

I have a 95 so its OBD1 and I have long tubes. But I ran open header for a few months. I even made a trip to Knoxville in the dead of winter. As long as you have long tubes, I would say you are fine to run open header. May just run open loop, but it wont cause any permanent damage.

 

I wish, I live in California (= no long tubes) so I have stock manifolds at the moment. I'll be installing some shorties or mids this winter as a project though. I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow, I'll have them check the cats first, if they're bad I'll buy an OR y-pipe (easier to swap in and out than headers) and hunt down a used stock y-pipe later.

Actually, I may get lucky and the dealer will replace them under warranty again, happened earlier this year and it still has under 70K miles.