catillatic converters

[lanquid]

Catalytic converters

how much hp/performance is lost when you have catalytic converters on your car?

 

[86StangLX]

It depends on what type of cats you're talking about. If you're referring to the stock set-up of four cats on the H-pipe, this is more restrictive than the after-market set up of one cat per pipe offered by all the exhuast companies. The gain with no cats is negligible according to many dyno sheets I've seen. Call me a tree hugger, but I would much rather pump cleaner air into the atmosphere than worry over a couple of horsies.

 

[hllon4whls]

It is not nearly as much as the first sets of cats that came out back in the day. As long as they function properly on a mostly stock stang, they are not hurting you much. A set of equal lengths and some muffs would get you a few ponies.

To be technical it is a federal offense to tamper with any functioning emissions device with the intention of defeating it. Not that I think you will spend time in a federal prison.

 

[willys1]

If your motor is stock,,your 5.0 will be faster them it on!! The motor needs a certain amount of back pressure!!

 

[Ford_Racing]

I made a huge mistake of getting a Bassani O/R X pipe on my 97 Cobra. It was way to loud for me so I went and put some high flow cats on. Much quieter and no performance loss that I noticed.

 

[BaXTeR3221]

if your tryin to get the look of cats, you could always weld on heat shields. I toyed with the idea of doing that, but i think in the end i'm going to have some hi-flow cats clamped or welded in. From what i've seen, there isn't much performance lost and its nice to have the piece of mind that you aren't breaking any laws.

 

[lanquid]

These are all valid points in mentioning that my car is stock. however, I just recently bought a 331 engine, which my avatar suggest, and I am putting it in soon. After I put everything in, including a vortech supercharger and a tremec TKO6 transmission, I am going to work on exhaust and my friend urged me not to put cats on because I would loose significant horsepower.

 

[Ford_Racing]

The only reason I want cats on is to quieten the car a lil more and to rid the rich smell. With high flow cats, I won't lose any ponies.

 

[5.0 Nostalgia]

If you get a good pair of cats on your car, it will not hurt you that much with that motor. That pipe will cost a lot more than a off road pipe.

 

[giddyup306]

According to Ford:

"It is illegal to remove either the converters or there substrate from street-driven vehicles. Converters can be removed only when legal replacements are being installed or when the vehicle is operated only off-road. Removing the specially coated ceramic monolithic honycomb material that fills the insides of the OE catalytic converyters or the converters themselves is not recommended, because the reduction in back pressure confuses the computer and hurts the engine's low end torque output. Although some sources have claimed an increase of 10 horsepower when the converters are removed from the system (for off-highway-only operation), the V-8 Mustang's production converters are recognized as being minimally restrictive."

Most of the time you will see higher trap speeds at the track but virtually the same times.

 

[willys1]

Being your gonna have some serious HP,,you want Bassani's new "all metal" cats,,they flow awsome,,and theres no cheap materials inside to melt and clog anymore,,they're all metal,,no ceramic

 

[HISSIN50]

and theres no cheap materials inside to melt and clog anymore

last time i checked, cats used precious metals, not cheap stuff.

i agree that some of the newer cats dont use the traditional honeycomb design - dont know much about them though.

 

[BaXTeR3221]

I would stick with cats, you shouldn't lose that much power and the rich smell sucks.

 

[Hydrocarbon]

Without the cats you get poisoned, with them you just suffocate. What fun is that? I like the smell of burned gas, makes the late model cars seem more 60's muscle car like.

I read somewhere that the stock cats take up 10hp on a 300RWHP car. So if your going to push over 400RWHP and are going to drive on the street, get some high flow cats.

I think most people change to high flow cats for a different exhaust sound. High flows and O/R pipes will usually make the exhaust louder.

 

[hllon4whls]

It doesent directly answer the question, but gives an idea what we are dealing with.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/catalytic-converter.htm

 

[5.0 Nostalgia]

It doesent directly answer the question, but gives an idea what we are dealing with.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/catalytic-converter.htm

Howstuffworks.com is awesome!

 

[Boss 351]

Following the link posted, cats are bad for global warming because of the high N2O emmisions according to the EPA! Now if we can come up with some sort of nanofilter that can gather the N2O, store them and use them as a constant N2O feed system to the engine

 

[RUSH2112]

Unfortunately, I am required to have cats for emissions.

 

[crazypete]

Everything fun is illegal. There's a law against everything immaginable. Go do what makes you feel good about the car. Offroad exhaust sounds many times ballzier than any catted setup and gives you that deep bass roar that the cats muffle and tone down. Weld some heatshields to your OR exhaust to satisfy the local police or get a mac prochamber that looks like a big catalytic converter (even has an airtube hookup for some inexplicable reason) then make friends with the local inspection station. I've had some dealership inspector bust my *ss about a fully catted, FI, all stock car. Next year I passed with a carbed car missing the charcoal cannister and EGR at a station where I have a lot of work done a month before. Nuff said.

 

[willys1]

last time i checked, cats used precious metals, not cheap stuff.

i agree that some of the newer cats dont use the traditional honeycomb design - dont know much about them though.

The regular cats that Bassani uses are made overseas and use cheap material inside the cats.Thats what melts and clogs.