I believe I saw someone on here selling a good used OEM cat. Not sure which side. I mention it because I know you've had a number of issues that you are trying to track down and eliminate and Hyperflos can sometimes throw some CELs (from what I've read) and then you have to start with the O2 spacers and whatnot. If it was me, I would try and stick with oem until its sorted so as not to complicate things further. Just my .02
Happy to get put in touch with that person who has a Bank 2 OEM cat that's still serviceable. Anyone? ketel
JT: If you come down this way for something, you are welcome to use my OEM Cats for a smog check but I need them back. I don't have a space set. If you don't come up with one through here, maybe call someplace like FabSpeed and see if they have one that they removed off a car or Exotic out of Sacramento area for a used one.
Brian - Great. Let me know. I'm happy to come out to San Ramon to pick up the Bank 2 cat. Much appreciated! ketel
Ok, gang, for all of you following the saga... The other week I went ahead and ordered HyperFlow cats. They should be here in the next week. My bank 1 OEM cat is fine but, for the life of me, I couldn't locate a spare bank 2 OEM cat anywhere and wasn't about to pay the king's ransom for one OEM cat through the usual suspects. I can't bend over that far... Today, as I continued my process of elimination to resolve the overheated bank 2 condition, I tested the spark plug wires on bank 2 side and, alas, found that spark plug wire #5 is bad. No connectivity. All the others on the bank 2 side were running in a consistent range around 6.2 when the multimeter is set in the 200k ohm setting. Correct me if I am wrong here, but from my perspective, it stands to reason that this *might* be the cause for the overheat condition, yes? If spark plug wire #5 is not sending spark to cylinder #5 then unburnt fuel would be ending up in the headers and cats, igniting and causing the bank 2 cat to glow red and burn up the material inside. Yes? It might be also the cause for my crap misfires and running performance as of late. Interested in hearing viewpoints here. Keep it classy. Also, can one order one spark plug wire and, if so, what's a good resource and how best to replace just the wire if the boots are on both end appear still good? Thanks all. ketel Image Unavailable, Please Login
I'm pretty confident you can replace just the wire. try removing the wire from the boot. Twist and pull. Kingsborne 7mm wire will do the trick.
Bruce - yes I twisted off both boots and they appear fine. Will kingsborne sell just one spark plug wire like that or should I just replace the entire set?
Take a good look at the connections between the wire and the ends. You might be able to trim the ends slightly and reassemble it. I've had bad wires from the factory that were assembled poorly.
Good find Ketel. I hope that was the definitive cause of your bank overheat. Something like this makes the case for keeping the monitoring system intact. Imo
+1 I just bought a brand new set from Kingsbourne and while I was fiddling around with how to route the wires for Goths wire route mod, things got a bit tight and a few wires pulled out from their coil side boots. I jammed them back in best I could, finished up and it ran smooth. Looks to me like your coil pack boot is not on in that pic. Here's a question, if you do indeed have a misfire due to a bad wire not transmitting spark to the spark plug, will the ecu register and report misfires to an OBD scanner?
Kettle, Just because the wire measured "open" doesn't mean you were not getting spark to that cylinder. The wire needs to be replaced, but when you measure the resistance you are measuring the resistance to current flow under DC conditions. Transmission of spark is basically and electromagnetic pulse and if there are small breaks in the conductor the pulse will jump across them, just as it jumps the gap in the plug. The broken conductor may result in a weak spark, but you should have also been able to feel or hear a misfire. What bothers me more is that will all the trouble you did not get a misfire code, or at least I don't recall you posting one. I'm not convinced that the plug wire is your problem. Could be, but at this point I'm a doubting Thomas. I would also suggest pulling the injectors form that bank and having the tested. One may be leaking.
Ketel, Do you have an OBD2 reader that can display live data or PIDS? If not, consider investing in one. Mine was $95 all in (PLX Kiwi 2 + Dash Command app) I have found it very helpful. Search this board for "kiwi" for recent discussions and alternate suggestions.
Enough with the AC theory already. He has a wire that tests "open" when it should be a few K ohms at most. In the real World, it's a "smoking gun" and nearly a certainty of being the problem. Not everyone can tell the difference between seven cylinders and eight. A single non-firing plug won't trigger a misfire code on a 355 like it will on later cars with individual coils. Suggesting that he test injectors before doing the obvious fix is ridiculous.
Sorry, Tim. This is real world experience. I'll give you an example. My 308 had had a slight miss below 3000 RPM. After checking a lot of things I finally ohmed the wires. Several measured open. No BS. Yet only a slight miss on one cylinder and the car otherwise ran great above 3k RPM, without misfiring. Below 3k the miss was obvious. They were the original Cavis wires from 1985 and were 25 years old. I went so far as to stick pins in the wires along the length to see if I could identify where the breaks were. Some wires had 2 or 3 breaks along the length. All this and only a slight miss at lower RPM. It's not AC theory, it is real world experience. If you accept that the plug gap is somewhere around 0.025" and the ignition pulse has no problem jumping that gap why would you doubt it could jump an internal break in a wire that may be less that 0.001"? Also, individual coils, I presume you are referring to coil on plug set up, are not required for an OBD II system to detect a misfire. In fact, misfires can occur for many reasons, many of which have nothing to do with ignition. OBD II sensing of misfires is usually done by monitoring crank speed after an ignition pulse is sent to each cylinder. This is a function of ODB II systems. Here is a link to a pdf on the topic. Quote or the pertinent part, http://www.magnaflow.com/07techtips/TechBulletin/TB80011.pdf I'm not saying that the wire in not a problem. It did not say it doesn't need to be replaced. Obviously it should. But kettle's problem is very serious and I would not assume that changing the wire will fix the problem. Potentially it might. But experience tells me that I would also expect if the wire was the only problem that there would be a significant misfire that would be obvious just listening to the engine at idle or under power. Replacing the cat is not inexpensive and I would want to be damn sure that the problem is corrected before I blindly assume it is and end up with another burnt cat. Pulling the injectors and having them checked for correct pattern and leaks is considerably less expensive than a new cat. Anyway there is an easy test. Leave the old wire in and connect it to another plug, not installed in the engine. Ground this plug. Crank the engine and see if the plug sparks. Simple enough and will tell you if the wire is really a source of misfire.
Sorry John, Tim is correct. Had a #7 wire fail. No code thrown. Hard to detect in normal driving. Failure appears to be an intermittent spark failure. I was lucky. Discovered when SDL came on. Stopped immediately, bank 2 cat cherry red! Replaced complete set with Kingsborne wires. Figure if 1 out of 8 failed, another is soon to follow.
