So can the cat listed in that ebay link work on a 97 LT1?

 

Found a fix to my rattling Cat The brand new cat replaced not long ago had a few of the tiny welds holindg the heat sheild break off. So the shield was just rattling away. Should be fixed once i find a way to fix it..

 

I had the same thing happen to me. I had a rattle coming from my cat and come to find out the honeycomb broke loose and went out of the exhaust! I have the Loudmouth, or I am sure it would have gotten caught in my muffler. It got real loud real quick!

Jason

 

So I take it the cat listed in that e-bay will not work?

Where can you get a cat then for under $100 that will fit a 97 LT1?

 

If you convert it to the older single cat exhaust it would work, but that would require new headers, y-pipe, and a new cat-back. If you have the dual cats, you best bet is to take it to a muffler shop or a speed shop that sells high flow cats. Now the kicker is, I doubt you'll find one to work for less than $100. But, and I say this because I don't know Louisiana Emmisions rules, your best bet would be to buy/make a cat delete set-up. Even if you gut the cats it will help your performance by seat of the pants feel...What most people don't realize is the cat has been hindering your performance long before it started rattleing. We had the same issue on the 95. Car was running ok, but didn't have the timeslips that it had only 6 months prior, with out anymore mods...So we looked at the cat and said that's the cheapest slternative right now, got a cat-delete pipe from mac and what do you know the old timeslips came right back. Luckily the driver has been driving the car daily for the last two years, so he knew right away performance was down. The next thing to look at is what caused the converter to fail?? They don't just fail for no reason, typically it's because the engine has been running rich for a long period of time, or you added leaded gas and ran that....That kills converters instantaniously. Just something to think about.

Chris

 

"They don't just fail for no reason, typically it's because the engine has been running rich for a long period of time, or you added leaded gas and ran that....That kills converters instantaniously. Just something to think about."

No need to break the guys ***** on this one. Yea so the motor might have been running a little rich for a while, thats not something that everyone notices because it could be so minor that while not affecting performance it is still dumping raw fuel into the cat clogging it up. F a cat delete pipe, there more trouble then there worth, if people can gut cats on a mustang with the setup that they have, then you can easily gut the cats 96-up camaro. If you need to replace the cat go for the Random Tech cats, because they make direct fit cats for our cars. Any cheaper cat will require being welded to the intermediate pipe, while the Random Tech one uses the factory flange. So in the end the differance in cost after you factor in labor will not be worth messin up the exhaust. Oh, and I dont even know why you would think that someone would intentionally put leaded gas in their car. It would have to be intentional because i dont know of any major gas chain that sells leaded at there pumps. So i doubt that was the reason.

 

My opti just went out and was replaced. Could that have caused the cat problems?

 

Yea that could have if it was giving off a weak spark, then that could mean that the fuel wasnt being burned completely. That could definitly have contributed to it.

 

Ok for one I wasn't busting anyone's *****....It was more of an informative piece, so people know. And the leaded gas I've learned first hand when I was younger....since AVGAS is a cheap alternative to actual race gas, I put 100LL in a cutlass I had....well the little amount of lead that was in it burned up my cat, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person that has ever done that.

Now back to the issue at hand, yes the opti could have caused the cat to go bad, but I would also take a look at the O2 sensors as those have more of a role in the A/F ratio. But yes if the Opti was putting out a weak spark for a period of time, then yes it could lead to converter failure.

And If I wanna bust peoples ***** I go to the local street racing website and bust theirs, I don't bust on fellow F-Body enthusiasts...

Chris