Melted my cats in under 1000 miles...

I presume you would have to add a lambda control in order to achieve the proper mixture. This would be all the more necessary as the 412 presumably polutes more than the 400i (more camshaft overlap).

 

The 412 has 4 degrees less overlap. We had many cars with cats and no lambda and modern cats can stand much higher temps than back then.
In other words I really think it can be easily done with no lambda. Lambda made them cleaner to comply with standards, not clean enough for a cat to survive.

For starters just setting mixture by ear isn't going to cut it. You really need to know what the HC is and many things effect HC that are not related to fuel mixture.
Cam timing is one of the big ones and at this point in the cars life unless it is an absolute certainty they have been measured and done correctly I would bet a substantial sum they are not correct. In other words you need to start at the beginning and make all functions of the engine tune correct and then you can put it on a 4 gas analyzer and see how the fuel injection is working. Its a 34 or so year old car. Its impractical to expect it is good enough state of tune to run successfully with cats all on its own.

We imported several 412s and serviced several more. It was not difficult to make them run clean.

 

Are you saying that CA required you to add cats, but didn't require you to add an air injection system, some sort of Lambda system, nor a fuel evaporation control system?

 

If it really ran correctly it would not have destroyed the cats in 1000 miles. I have a fair bit of experience in the 400/412 models and tuning them for California smog testing, right there in the Bay Area. With no equipment in proper tune they run quite clean. No reason in the world they should destroy new cats in 1000 miles in that correct state of tune.

 

It needs whatever the federal paperwork says it needs. If it was ever California legal (not all grey market cars are) it will have a BAR label in the drivers door jamb. Typically white. It will have a list of required equipment. There was no standard. It is a list generated by the importer as to what was installed on that car to make it pass. It is difficult to believe it was cats only. Remember, the car was required to pass an entirely different and much more complex set of tests to get cleared by EPA and BAR. That is what is reflected by what is on that sticker. What it needs to pass a tailpipe test is a very different matter. The smog station is supposed to look at that sticker and be sure that entire list is present and functional.

If it was very recently imported much of that has changed because of the cars age. DMV is ultimately who you will be answering to. Might be easiest to get it smogged and present the paperwork and see if any alarm bells go off.

 

If it has an existing CA registration you have little to worry about. Every community has a smog station who cant be bothered with dotting i's and t's. Get it tuned to tolerate cats and put some on when the time comes.

What part of Bay you in? I was in East Bay for 59 years.

 

Rob - sorry to hear. My suggestion is to take your car to @Motob (Brian Brown) at San Rafael European (formerly San Francisco Motorsports). Brian is awesome with our cars and will be able to get this sorted. They will also pick up the car for those of us in the South Bay - highly recommended.

Good luck - once you’re sorted, let’s finally get that 412 5 speed gathering going.

Ruben

 

I thought this was the other way round : I did time my 400i gen1 as per the 412 owner manual, the inlet cams do open and closes earlier than on the 400i, which gives a bit more dynamic compression and a bit more overlap. The 412 ignition timing was also slightly advanced to match this inlet advance (plus vacuum advance, which the 400i does not have).

If I were to depolute a 412, I would probably try to follow the 400i OM.

 

We brought in several 412's. Cam timing change was not needed. Never had cat issues and far better cats are available now.

He needs to fix what is wrong, not grope around.

 

When I bought my car 16 years ago it had no cats, but an air pump still sat in front of the PS gear with no belt on it. My exhaust was straight pipes from the collectors back to a single muffler (not resonator) at the back. (Same setup as Dave Stacy's car.) Exhaust was pretty bad at idle; purging/adjusting the rear suspension lever left me laying between two pipes with 1.5% CO on either side of me! I also, got fumes in car when driving with windows open.

I decided to add a pair of cats. Shop added two "high flow" cats from Summit Racing. Each cat were ones used as a single cat on a 350+ HP Corvette, so these cats are certainly oversized for my 400i. The cats sit just about under the front seats so there is some straight pipe between collector and the cats. Ignition timing and FI are set as before. I set the CO to ~1.5% at test port in front of the cats. I have no Lambda or air pump. The exhaust is clearly cleaner once the cats heat up. I have had no evidence of them overheating.

I am not as knowledgeable as some of the other posters, just adding my experience.
Ken

 

Ferrari's history includes 1980-1983 US models being K-Jet without Lambda yet still having cats (like you are now). One difference is that those models also had continuous exhaust port injected air injection so:

1. Some of the post-cylinder combustion would occur in the exhaust manifold/pipes upstream of the cats, and

2. The cats would reach operating temp more quickly.

Both of those factors might extend the cats' life (i.e., effectiveness) somewhat. Most likely the OP's car is just set way too rich (as IC engines run beautifully set rich ), and yours being set down at ~1.5% CO is where you should be with cats so doubt that you'll have an overheating issue -- but, if you were a US auto manufacturer on the hook to replace any cat that stops working well for free for up to 50K miles use = that could be a little painful for them. Would love to see some long-term, post-cat exhaust measurements on your car to see if that's what forced the US auto manufacturers to add the cost and complexity of air injection...

 

FYI, here is what a BAR sticker looks like, from my 400i 50679.


Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

i think to first understand how cats can get destroy very fast.
Can be quite dangerous to contiue driving.

 

Large amounts of unburned HC's + available O2 will burn out a cat quickly. My Subaru SVX lost a coil on one cylinder before electronics were good enough to shut down that cylinder's fuel injector; result was a glowing red cat and lots of heat around it. I made a quick call to Subaru and unplugged the FI until I got a new coil.
Extrapolate that to your situation; too much fuel + O2.
Ken