On a completely different note, that the SCCA supports a class explicitly
designed for road-going cars, and that the SCCA is allowing (and by
implication encouraging) those cars to run without cats is silly both from
a legal standpoint as well as a PR standpoint. Given the focus on "street
legal" why don't you require a cat on those vehicles originally equipped
with one, just like the fed?
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On a related note, why require factory cats on cars that are supposedly
following the "street" trends? Why not allow aftermarket cats?
Yeah yeah yeah, I know about the whole "you're not supposed to mess with a
working factory cat for the first 50K miles" thing. But most people who are
serious about street car performance also mysteriously suffer catastrophic
failures (caused by large mallets, tall speed bumps, running leaded race
gas, broom handles, whatever) of the stock cats and have to resort to
aftermarket hi-flow cats from the likes of Catco to remain "legal". There
is NO federal law that says you must replace a non-functioning stock cat
with another OEM piece.
It's especially silly in the Street Touring classes (which I'm in now) where
(virtually) any header is allowed and any cat-back exhaust systems are also
allowed but you have to retain the stock cat between those two "free" items.
Now THAT'S a dumb rule. Why not allow an aftermarket hi-flow cat. I know
my cat is probably gonna suffer some type of catastrophic failure this year
and will need to be replaced and I'll be damned if I'm gonna shell out the
bucks for an OEM piece. No way, no how.
We've already established that the local muffler shop can replace a
non-functioning OEM cat with an aftermarket "OEM type" unit. But what's to
prevent the installation of a hi-flow unit? Most generic "OEM type" units
actually perform worse than the stock piece. What exactly constitutes "high
performance" versus "stock"? Is it a measurable difference and if so, is it
measurably comparable to an OEM unit? Where is this mythical official Stock
vs. Aftermarket chart against which we can measure the two combatants? And
what are the criteria? Flow characteristics? Substrate surface area?
Cheap look and rattling heat shields? What? How do you "measure" an OEM
cat? And if you can't positively 100% tell me what exactly constitutes an
"exact" replacement for the OEM unit then I'm pretty much free to run
whatever catalytic converter that I want. You (the potential protestor)
have to prove that it's not equivalent to the OEM piece.
I just love gray areas. ;^)
Eric Linnhoff in KC
1998 Dodge Neon R/T
#69 STS #13 TLS
eric10mm@qni.com
ICQ#101282513
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