Well I was driving home tonight and pulled into my driveway and popped my hood. It was very dark out. And the end of the manifold where it connects to the Y pipe where what I call a dark red. I have a little problem here. My cat and the rest of my exhuast however were not red at all. Just the manifold and part of the Y pipe. My cat is welded to my Y pipe which sucks. So whats my best bet now? I knew i was lacking power, and gas milage was horrible. And do i need a left to get my y pipe off? I woudl get headers however they do not have any made yet that would meet my emissions standards Really lost

 

Check to see if your rad fan is coming on. Maybe tstat problem also.

 

Check your timing, make sure it is advancing correctly... do you hear a clicking/popping sound at all? I'd check for a cracked manifold - you might be getting a little leak right there, and it'll cause the manifold to heat up.

 

running rich id say

 

Thanks again. I'm getting about 12 miles to a galloon right now Has horrible acceleration compared to my firends 2.8. Radiator fan turns on and off with no problem. Anything else I should check on it? Whats the popping noise your talking about? I sealed up the y pipe connections to the manifold. It still sounds like its leaking a bit, like ticking noise. Both sides are getting red hott also

 

the poping noise would be a backfiring intake valve, which would suggest timing or a bad maf.

i really do think your timing is off.

 

oh and dont let your manifold heat up too much, or they will turn blue and warp leaving a nasty unfixabl exhaust leak like mine did.

stupid dealership didnt put my dist. bolts in

 

I can almost guarantee that your cat is plugged...too much backpressure. Cut the cat off with a saws-all and I bet you get your power back.

 

The cat is less then a year old which doesn't really make any since. However i never checked the manifolds at night, i just happened to pop the hood. Big loss of power. Wouldn't the cat be heating up if it was that and turning red? I have never touched the timing and my hermonic balancer is a little warpped and its expensive to fix so not sure if i can check timing. Why would i be getting 11 miles to the gallon? and horrible performace? What do you guys recomand. If I hack the exhuast off, then I need a new y pipe because its welded on The car doesn't run hot either I don't know what to do now, its a daily driver too

 

if your timing is off its not sparking the fuel at the right time, and its dumping tons of unburnt fuel into the exhaust. thus no power, bad milage, and hot exhaust.

 

just dumpning unburnt fuel into the exhaust should not be enough to heat up the manifolds like that. If you set fire to teh fuel in the manifold, and have no other problems in the exhaust, then it has PLENTY of room to expand AND you WILL notice fire out the tailpipe. Cheap cats go bad fast...and who here really puts expensive cats on their cars...we HATE CATS!!! No one would spend $400+ on a cat for our cars, so we get the cheap universal replacments from CATCO. if you have had ANY kind of misfire or anything since you put that cat in, be it becasue of a bad coil or something like that, it has damaged the converter.

Are you saying that the converter if litterally right after the y-pipe comes together from the 2 banks? If that's so, then where is the O2? Also, don't ever take your car back to that muffler shop again. you should be able to chop off the cat and put a piece of straight pipe in there on a temporary basis. Then go down to the muffler shop and get a new one put on. even if you're a little short on distance from teh y-pipe, a muffler shop will be able to weld some straight pipe on to get it back to the stock location.

Now, this is all coming from experience. I am a smog tech in California and have seen A LOT of cars like this. It's not a thing that you want to happen, but it does. I've also had a CAT melt and clog up by having a miss for 1 day, it all depends on who made the cat and how bad the other problems are.

 

I will chopped it off and have them weld a straigh pipe in rhe time being and see if that helps. What cat should I get for the car? Yeah I had a misfire for a while. HOw hard is it to drop the y pipe with a common floor jack. I doubt u can weld around the cat with the Y pipe in place. No the cat comes after the 02, but its welded into place. Thanks again guys

 

If you take it to the muffler shop, they should have a lift and once it's on the lift, it's EASY to weld around the pipe. There is plenty of room. I even had to take mine off in the driveway because it clogged on me. It's hollow now. It's bolted on the back side, but welded on the front, so I had to cut it off. I wouldn't spend too much on a cat...our cars aren't really worth it. I plan on putting a cheapo on mine when it comes time for smog. I didn't say they aren't worth it, i just said don't expect them to take too much of a beating. That's all. i think you will find your problem is with the cat being clogged, seeing as that you posted that you might have a problem with backpressure in another thread. Good luck man...hope it works out and let us know what you find.

 

I think you have an exhaust leak. WHen my engine bay self bbq'd, teh pass side manifold was bright orange . Guess what, teh y-pipe wasn't fully connected to teh manifold. There was a gap in which the exhaust ws getting out & thus set some things on fire .

Just giving you another option to look into.

 

I just replaced the stupid y pipe gaskets about 10 times. I was also told I have to much back pressure, so maybe this is it? I was just going to weld in a straight pipe for the time being. What do you recommand? Then getting the cat at a later note. I just don't want to get finded for it

 

I'm trying to find a stupid pipe so i can weld it in there for the time being instead of a cat, but they only sell 24 inch piping and that is to small I was going to cut the flange where the cat goes and just weld the pipe there. But then if i get another cat will it fit? Do i need that flange? Should I just cut the middle of the cat off and throw in a big pipe there? What do you recommand doing? Any help would be great. Thanks