Chunk of Cat in Exhaust

[Phil Rose]

At 6:10 PM +0000 4/23/03, Jacob Michaels wrote:
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>While doing exhaust work on my recently purchased 200q20v, a chunk of cat.
>converter substrate was found in the left exhaust pipe before the middle
>resonator.
>
>I figured that the cats would need changing (orginal cats, car has 140K), but
>this seems like it is not the normal way a cat fails.

Glad to hear about a new owner. Welcome.
Based on my own limited experience (starting at about 115K miles),
the breakup is "normal", although the pieces of the catalyst do not
necessarily migrate back to the resonator--they may just stay in
place and just rattle a lot.

>The car pulls 1.8 bar and has a IA III+ chip and right now runs great. Any
>ideas if an anomolous engine event caused cat explosion, or is this a sign of
>something more chronic?

I don't believe so (hope not, anyway). The main concern--other than
loss of catalytic effectiveness--is when the cat pieces move
rearwards and possibly clog the exhaust system (i.e., you might have
a lot more pieces already in the resonator.) BTW, your IA III+ chip
ought to give you much more than 1.8 bar absolute--are you using a
real (analog) boost gauge, or the on-board digital display (which is
innaccurate and uncalibrated for the chip).



Phil
--

Phil Rose				Rochester, NY USA
'91 200q	(135 Kmiles, Lago blue)
'91 200q   (64 Kmiles, Tornado red)
	mailto:pjrose at frontiernet.net