HELP I need a catalytic converter '84 308 GTS

First of all, the much demonized California SMOG requirements are straightforward. The biggest obstacle in the process of getting an old exotic car SMOGged are the SMOG Test shops: they are extremely conservative and many are ill-informed. If you contact the BAR Referee program they will tell you that any PC1 cat is acceptable for a 308.

I will reach out on your behalf to a FChat member in the SF Bay Area who has just been through this all with a 1983 308 GTS. Hopefully he can provide some details about the how and what of replacing his cats.

 

I betcha the guys at fabspeed (sponsors here) can recore it for you. (not entirely kosher from an EPA POV, but highly unlikely you'll have a problem if the retain the original exterior, AND it works when they're finished.

ask for Joe Fabiani (the owner guy)

Fabspeed Motorsport USA
155 Commerce Drive
Fort Washington, PA 19034-2401
United States of America
Phone: 215-646-4945 | Fax: 215-646-9828

 

BTW, you don't want to use a 1984 factory cat without re-coring it with a modern matrix. The technology has much improved since 1984. Specifically, cats now are filled with a mesh matrix which is lightweight and cause minimal back pressure. The original factory cats are filled with catalyst-coated pellets, are as heavy as sand bags and likely cause tremendous back pressure.

 

I assembled these and found them to be as close to oem that I could find. Much lighter in weight and the exhaust smell is far less toxic in smell. I had a local welder weld the flanges and pipe extensions to the universal spun cars.
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Will another year also fit?

D

 

Brand new from Ferrari for only $5400!!!! Holy ****. But available, none the less.

D

 

Rich Roslin aka yatchcaptan on Ebay has one. You have to check with him. Sometime he doesn't remove the ads after the item is sold. He's in Lodi northern Cal. I bought a 308 and many parts from him.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ferrari-Testarossa-Exhaust-Muffler-Zeuna-Augsburg-ZS-428-D-121-385-OEM/273361526595?hash=item3fa59ddf43:g:Ob4AAOSwKAJbTlBZ



Also on Craiglist there's a guy in Whittier Southern Cal has one come with original muffler. I bought 308 parts from him before.
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/pts/d/whittier-ferraricatalytic-converter-and/6780822377.html
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Sorry the first two pics are from Ebay sale. The third pic is from Craigslist Southern Cal.
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Andrew,
Did your mechanic resolve the rich running condition? I think you will want to have that corrected prior to installing a new cat.

 

Wouldn't it be a lot easier and less expensive to purchase an aftermarket CARB-approved Cat? In just random searching, they seem to be commonly available. From reading the CA requirements, it appears to me that as long as the Cat is CARB-certified, it is suitable and acceptable as a replacement for an OEM Cat.

 

That is exactly the problem: while any PC1 cat is acceptable, the CARB (California Air Resources Board) does not list the Ferrari 308 in their on-line database. SMOG centers use the database to identify acceptable aftermarket cats. Most SMOG test centers have never seen a 308. All they know how to do is fail them. There is other documentation on the CARB website which overrides the database, but the SMOG shops don't read that stuff.

The other demon is that we need to get our cars tested every second year which makes it a perpetual obstacle course.

 

New OEM shaped CATs are out there.

About $800 +/- a pair.

Do some digging. Saw them a couple of nights ago.

 

I realize I have never have to deal with the specific problem, not living in CA, but in similar situations where the "authorities" said something was not acceptable or authorized, if I presented a printed copy of the pertinent regulation that showed it IS OK, they always agreed, often with an "I'll be darned, we didn't know that!"

But I clearly understand that you want to get this done in the least controversial way possible, which would undoubtedly be the OEM cat - or at least the OEM shell...

 

In the UK we have the MoT test (although since cars over 40 years don't have to do it any longer, my gt4 is exempt) and my approach was to phone around and find a test center that 'understood' before presenting the car. Once you find a place that knows that the handbrake lever is just for show and that testing the emissions(*) will just dirty their machine, keep going back. The local independent Ferrari specialist will usually know who these people are. Maybe this approach will also work for you?

(*) Ferrari lied when certifying their cars and a mid-70s UK car is right on the cusp of the more stringent UK testing regs that it won't pass whilst still running properly.

 

Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login I went through this recently. Every smog place has the pamphlet for calling a smog referee. He will tell you this: What you need is "Appendix G Smog". Google it. Download it. Print it. On page G3 there's a section for catalytic converters. Go down to "Pre-OBDII Vehicles". Last sentence, first paragraph: "Inspectors are not required to check specific vehicle application using the series or part numbers." That's the key to use any approved cat.

Google "Pre-OBD II EO Listing". Footnotes on page 2. PC-1 = Pre-OBD II passenger cars with one catalytic converter per bank. That's what you need, a PC-1. Any PC-1 is legal. They come in various flange sizes.

There is one thing that I messed up in all of this when I did it. I didn't get a cat compatible with air injection, which the 308 certainly has. When he tried to weld in a bung for air injection there wasn't a pocket in the middle of the cat that allowed it. I don't know for sure that a cat compatible with air injection solves this problem, but for sure the "no air" versions have a problem putting the bung in the middle. My muffler guy just welded it at the upstream end of the cat. Hopefully no bad things come of this.

 

"they are not on the website list that the smog shops use and they failed just on visual."

Do you have the aluminum plate that goes under the cats? If so, the smog tech can't even see the cats other than they are there and are cat shaped. I've taken the 308 to a few different shops over the years and no one was interested in poking around more than determining that there were some cat-shaped things under there.

 

Brian A is right - it's not the CA smog that's the real problem, it's the lack of knowledge of the smog techs combined with the paranoia instilled by the CARB undercover agents or whatever that shuts down smog shops when they pass cars that shouldn't. Same with muffler shops. The upside of them working on your car is maybe a couple of hundred bucks, but the potential downside is that they lose their entire business. Why would they risk it?

The guy at the shop I used in San Jose actually read what I brought, understood the law and got me parts. I have to admit that the job is mechanically sound, but is ugly and I wouldn't go back with a car I love again. Most people don't care. I'm not most people and I suspect most of us here do care also. But I got two cats installed for $600, drove it around the block to warm them up, pulled into the smog shop across the parking lot and got a PASS. And I lost an awful sounding rattle of all the broken ceramic in the cats which is the real reason I started down this path.

 

you can use smog guy in so cal, my friend use him for 328 for 10 years in LA he will not look cat AT ALL KCM SMOG IN CARSON CA USA 310 513 0855 he puts on dyno and use sniffer and car pass if yor cat works

 

Apparently CARB monitors the percentage of test failures for each of the SMOG Test Centers. Statistically each SMOG shop will fail about the same percentage of cars.

This means SMOG shops actually WANT to fail a certain number of cars each month to keep their statistics below CARB thresholds and avoid their scrutiny. A 308 is probably an easy pigeon.

Seems like it would be easier for them to just reject or fail the car.

Brian Harper did it right. It’s a long story as to why but ultimately I paid a professional Ferrari Tech (John Hein) to replace my cats in January 2017. Nice job, but expensive.

I decided this year to go back to the SMOG test center (Auto Repair Specialist in San Rafael) that John used despite it being a 40 mile drive from my house. It’s in the same building as SF Motorsport, which is an exotic car repair shop, so they get exposure to exotic cars.

They said they test a couple of Ferraris a month. Bringing their 2017 SMOG paperwork with me was a real confidence builder for them and I got an efficient pass. I now consider it worth the 40 mile drive and I will now do it again every 2 years.

You might ask John Bagioli at Forza Motors in Monterey what SMOG shop he uses since that shop will be familiar with Ferraris. Once they pass you the first time, subsequent visits should be simple. Although “should” is a dangerous word …