Ya think this might be the reason I wasn't passing smog?
 

Been fiddling and wasting money since last October. Two shops didn't tell me about it either. Finally shined a flashlight in my cat and low and behold. Clean as a whistle.

DUH!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1272602912.jpg

Bought a used cat from a local guy for $110 and it passed. I feel a bit, no, a lot dumb right now. Oh well it's passed.

So you missed a gutted cat. I've done dumber things...

I'm a bit surprise the shops didn't find it either.

A Doctor once told me....

"More things are missed from not looking than not knowing"

Sigh... Glad you passed.

You actually suspected it a while back:

Ugh Harry. Don't remind me. I did buy the air pump a while back and thankfully a delay in getting it installed due to a stuck fitting. But that pushed me to get a cat.

They should have!
They obviously didn't even look there...

so which shops are we talking about here, eh? ;-)

this is really funny...

You know, I am not all that surprised the shops didn't find it. Did they have cause to remove the exhaust as part of trying to get the car to pass? In my experience, most attempts to get a car tuned within smog spec are going to focus on the tune of the car. They are going to be playing with fuel and timing, making sure the plugs are fresh, etc. Unless there was a hole in the exhaust that required taking it apart and replacing other components around the cat they wouldn't really of had reason to go in there if the exhaust was sealed and not leaking.

Maybe I'm totally off in left field here. I didn't read your other thread, but if my above assertions are even close to correct I wouldn't be too hard on the shops. They probably did the logical progression of diagnostics and tuning and this gutted cat is just way down the line of usual suspects. It looks like a cat from the outside, right? Unless someone told you it was gutted, who's to know?

i'm surprised that it could not be tunes to pass with no cat.