This brings up some good points. Upon inspection and emissions inspection, the
tech looks for the visual inspection of a cat - that its physically there.
They dont put it on a lift and measure inlet/outlet size or compare size to
that of an OEM cat. As long as its there and the tailpipe air is clean, you're
cool. It would be understood that running a 'fake' or hollowed out cat would
be illegal - But the high-flow units from random, catco, dynomax and the like,
how can you even know that they are different from the 'generic/oem' type you'd
find at midas/mineke? Not by visually inspecting it thats for sure. I did
leave my cat in until it really did fail (75K) and i replaced it with a dynomax
high flow unit. Looks the same, except the 2.25" inlet/outlets. Running no
cat probably wouldnt net you any power anyways on a 4-cylinder, such as my
saturn - at least not without an annoying increase in noise/resonance from
under the car. Not enough to justify the 1hp i get. with !
a 2.25" exhaust, a little backpr
essure is neccessary. The point is, its just like ECU's in Stock class - you
can make a rule but you cant enforce it. If you're protested, what are we
donna do? Cut off your cat and put it on a flow bench? Sorry, your cat will
flow 300cfm, its illegal - i dont think so. I just hope i'm not protested in
STS, but if i am, they may look under the car and my shitty ass exhaust and get
too busy laughing and forget the reason they were under there in the first
place. Besides... who's gonna come up, if you win in STS and say... "he
cheated, he's got an illegal cat, its not oem". Shit, the high flow units are
probably cheaper than midas/walker replacements, and depending on your car, you
may not even be able to find a direct fit replacement. So even if you are
protested and they can somehow magically prove that your cat is a 'high flow'
unit (what is a high flow cat anyways? in comparison to oem, what separates
them, where's the line?) can they prove that your addition of th!
e extra 1.63 HP it gave you on y
our 4-cylinder neon/saturn/scooobaru is the winning edge? Can they prove that
by going back to "oem" you would have lost the time you beat them by? Driving
and chassis setup is so much more of a part of the game than the 2HP here...
the 3HP there... 2.5 ft-lbs here... anyone follow?
-Ryan 92 SC/DSP/STS
www.saturn.pair.com/ryanj.htm
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 15:48:30 -0600
From: "Linnhoff, Eric" <elinnhoff@smmc.saint-lukes.org>
Subject: Was: SM PAX & 'Street Legal?' Now: cats
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?
===============================
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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