Good morning, I I am currently planning on exchaning my '96 (5.2 75'000km) catalytic converters from ceramic to metallic. I had several times trouble with the "Vescovinis" and metallic convertion and disabling the temp supervision is now a no brainer to me. Sadly, I do not have the full service history of the first 18 years of the car, but the car seemed 100% original when I bought it. From what I could find in several forums, Ferrari delivered F355 cars with 400cpsi ceramic and later in the run 200cpsi metallic. Once I had on mine the silencer off, I found the catalytic converters in very good condition (seen from the back), being 400cpsi (ruler on pictures is 15mm wide), BUT the foil thickness seems very thin and looks visually to me more like a metallic one. Some pictures on the internet of ceramic ones seem very flow restrictive (see photo attached). When i bended some channels with a screw driver they seem very brittle (and thus being ceramic?). However I dont know how a metallic would feel like. So long story short, I am not 100% sure anymore what material I have in my converters. What do you think, is that a ceramic one? Any other idea how this can be judged (like a magnet ? ) Many thanks for your opinions. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Those catalyst look to be OEM ceramic cores same as in the 348 and my early 95 F355. The metallic core versions have a spiral shape.
The metal cores (from Random Technologies) who supplied the Hyperflow cores -- and I think for a short time some other US-based cat players -- look like this: Image Unavailable, Please Login
If you think of the cat matrix as looking like rolled up corrugated card board the factory metallic cats look like it is randomly rolled up rather than the very neatly rolled cat matrix in Ricambis picture. If it looks like a screen door it is ceramic.
