It looks like an asteroid landed in my exhaust..Or it grew a set of testicles! lol So I get back tonight from a great meet and greet about 20 awesome cars, The first drive of the year for me. When I get back I hear this loud knocking noise. I pop the engine to see if I can see something., nothing seems out of place or loose. Put my foot on the left exhaust nothing. It kept knocking, put my foot on the right exhaust hmmm it baffled the sound. So I look down and that's what I saw. What the hell is that! I grab my plier's and pulled it out. Looks like the packing from the catz. No light's were on and to be honest it ran very well. Need to know if I can start it back up first without risking any damage How much damage could I have if any. Cheers Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Definitely cat material. Probably still pieces floating around. You'll want to remove the exhaust from the header flanges back and make sure you remove all the offending material. Of course, you'll need at least one if not both cats replaced. Don't drive it til you make sure the exhaust path is clear, otherwise risk bad things happening.
Thanks Bruce that's what I thought.. I have a set of the gothspeed cats I guess I will be installing them very shortly. Cheers
Those 'goth' cats you have are very nice 200 cell Hi-Flow with metallic matrix. You will not have that disintegrating problem ever again !!!
Holy **** my man I think you just avoid a major failure, similar situation happened to me with drastic results as you remember lol. Question for you is, you live in Canada you do not need cats before you install new ones degut your old ones (literally destroy the matrix inside) and enjoy more hp and better sound .
Roberto your the first I thought of when I saw this. lol I'm like holy **** didn't Roberto's problem start like this!! So you gutted your original cats and all is ok? Or What set up are you going with now? Cheers
Warning! You MUST have "check engine" lights with a P code stored for "low catalyst efficiency". If no CE light, then someone removed the bulb (needs to be corrected). If you do have the light, that is not something you should ignore....expensive damage can result! That takes a while for the cat to get that bad...like many weeks or months of driving with the CE light illuminated. Bottom line, you need at least one new catalyst. There are tons of thread with alternatives. I had good luck getting one of mine rebuilt recently with a fresh metal catalyst core installed inside my original Ansa housing. http://smithcat.com/ Just remind them to use SS welding rod, and NOT to paint the cat silver...they did both on mine. But works great, and no CE lights.
Actually, if was a banana that he pulled out of his exhaust it would have been better than his catalytics
I take it you did not take her for a long hard spirited drive? that is what probably saved you Using the same cats just removed the Matrix inside very easy to do. And yes all is ok, I would recommend you change your o2 sensors now as well.
Ha Ha As Mike said I wish it were a Bananna! Great Point about the CE, I'll get that looked at as well, I really hope not though. Thanks for the link! No basically 120Km for about 20 min kept the rpm under 6k You removed the matrix and you have no CE light's on? Thanks for the info guy's. I appreciate your help.
If you decide to replace the cats, replace them both so you are certain that they have similar throughput. If you can get your car to pass inspection without cats, definitely punch the cats and leave them empty - the car sounds worlds better and has a little more zip (I can't quantify a HP increase, but it definitely sounds faster )
1996 to 1999 355's which have Motronic 5.2 will definitely throw a "check engine" light if there is no catalyst. Many who remove cats, will simply remove the bulb to the CE light, but the Motronic monitors many systems on the car, and is your first line of defense by warning you by way of the "check engine" light if anything is out of spec or malfunctioning...removing the light means things will get very bad often times, before you can correct the issue. These failed cats are an example, that if the PO never saw a CE light, that the bulb was very possibly removed.
Correct no CEL lights at all, we 348 owners are lucky as we require only one O2 sensor per cat so your car will actually tune itself properly, but just in case your O2 sensors now have been damaged get new ones. Some cars have two sensors per cat one before Matrix one after Matrix, we do not have this problem .
As mentioned, the 1996 to 1999 355's have 5.2 Motronic, which have a pre and post catalyst O2 sensor. No cat, and the post cat O2 sensor will detect the "low catalyst efficiency" and store a P-code in the Motronic and a "check engine" light on the dash.
