Hey, im not much of an exhaust guy, but ive checked pretty much everything mechanical on the car and nothing seems wrong... My dads Saturn is bogging alot, seems like something its plugged, doesnt have any ***** at all... At low RPMs when the engine is hot, the oil light starts to flicker on and off... The RPM's sometimes drop a bit... Could this be a clogged catalytic? Also, the exhaust sounds different... Thanks...

 

Find somewhere on the intake you can hook up one of those $15.00 CrappyTire vacuum guages. With a clogged cat, once you start to crank the throttle up(slowly, not a WOT blast)- the more clogged the cat. is, the sooner the vacuum will bog down (i.e. a 1/2 plugged cat might start dropping vacuum heavily at 2500rpm).

If vacuum is relatively consistent, then you can eliminate a plugged cat. as your problem.

Note- this test is not foolproof- dropping vacuum at at slow throttle increase (this is all in the driveway by the way-i.e. not under load) may not only be a cat. problem but this is one of the more likely possibilities.


Also, if a cat is plugged at least 50%- driving it up and down the highway for 10 minutes would tend to make it glow red hot (try to see behind the aluminum shielding) when it normally wouldn't.