Gutted the S2 cat

[bazar01]

Symptoms are smoke coming out of the shifter console and glowing hot cat on a long mountain drive. I thought it was going to be as easy as getting a 1/2" steel rod and a hammer.
Nope! The inside has 3 pcs of 2 feet long x 3 inch wide steel wire mesh between the ceramic honeycomb. It was a job to pull these out. It turned out to be a 3 hour job. I will get an aftermarket high flow cat in the near future since there is no emission test over here.

The car now drives and pulls a little harder then before.

The 3rd steel wire mesh is still inside the cat.

[mikepellegrini]

Heh, heh...

I did that on my kid's 84 NA. It was spitting out chunks of charcoal, which rattled in the tail pipe and muffler - and which drove us nuts until we figured out what was happening.

My remedy was a metal fence post.

Like you said, the guts were pretty stout and took a lot of pounding. I managed to get everything out. The car seemed a little more responsive afterwards, and had a deeper, throatier growl.

[nightheart]

um, I picked this up but haven't used it yet. Not much different than the straight pipe I'm running now, but should look a little more "legal." Got mine on ebay, but its the same idea


High Flow Non-Catalytic Converter, 3"

[wild man]

That's very interesting. "He wont charge you a lot for a muffler, but he'll rake you over the coals for a fake cat." Actually, when I go full 3" on the 951S, my plan is to take the gutted stock cat and chop off the ends of it at the 3" opening points, slide it onto the 3" pipe like a sleeve, and weld it on. Oh, and the purpose of the mesh is to surround the catalyst and hold it in place without it touching the outside walls. It's not really that hard to get out. Just use a hooked piece of coat hanger wire, after all pieces of the catalyst have been removed.

[nightheart]

Think I paid 30 for my non-cat. My cat has been missing since I got the car, so it really wasn't a bad deal for me, and I got the 2.25 to put on my existing pipe. Till you figure in the price of a used cat and the effort to gut it, 30 seemed ok with me. My pipe split in half right in the middle of the car, and is being held together by clamps right now. Thats what started this whole thing for me. I got a guy to bend me a pipe and weld in the fake cat along with the flanges to reattach it, but I ran into a few other financial problems and haven't got around to it. probably next month, and the clamps are holding the rust together for now. At the least the car is drivable. sorry for the hijack.