Lol, I bet Jesus runs a CAT.

And BTW: Now I have my Magnaflow on..which I am SURE is causing more global warming, I just hope the bottom half of the world melts first!!!

-Cody

 

Is that the part with Australia on it? If you think that's the bottom half then you really do have some things to learn--Australia is at the TOP of the world!

 

This whole thread is crazy. EPA standards state that if you modify ANY emissions part (intake, header, cat, resonator and muffler) you are in violation of the law and subject to a fine. To say that not running a cat on a street driven car is a load of crap and then saying not running one on a race car is fine....is totally rediculous. That kind of reasoning is mind-boggling. And I don't understand the views on pre-1974 cars. They put out emissions just the same if not more....and to say that since they are more than 25 years old they are exempt from pollution?!? Come on. When anyone puts an aftermarket SC or turbo on the car that is or is not CARB certified is STILL in violation of the law because you altered the factory setup! We can go round and round on this til the end of the earth due to not running a cat. I know for one that I am about to alter EVERY aspect of my exhaust (OBX header, NO CAT, straight pipe to a 4.5" exhaust). But, you know what...if this is what gets me a good seat in hell.....so be it. Maybe all the hippies on this board should say something about all the JP-8 jet fuel, jet oil and some of the other contaminants that get dumped (mistakenly or not) into the drains. And that's just the tip of the iceberg that is around.

Oh....and if you ever speed again....your going to hates because you broke the LAW and put everyone's life in danger.....next time be considerate of others around you and the common good of the people. 1 MPH over nonetheless.

Running catless.....give me a frickin' break.............

 

Well...it depends which way I rotate it....

 

I find your logic lacking. But whatever. I think it's pretty obvious that every one of us has our own standard of what degree of transgression we all are willing to live with. I just happen not to agree with yours, that's all.

I also think that you'll find that there are non-hippies that think running no cat on a street car is bad as well. Why is it that if one points out that there are societal harms associated with certain actions one is a hippie? I though taking acount of the impact of ones actions was just polite.... What do I know....

Matt

ps, for pre 74 cars there are two real reasons not to put a cat on them, despite the amount they pollute. 1) The carb can't run well enough to keep the cat working at it's sweet spot, so they aren't that effective on carb'ed cars without really choking back power and 2) cats run hot, hot, hot. So much so that the insulation of whatever from the heat has to be taken into account. For example, in my Mustang, there's really no place to put a cat that wouldn't heat the body up to the point that the sound deadener and the carpeting wouldn't have a good chance of catching on fire. On post 74 cars, the were designed in from the factory (remember all the bumps on the floor of the passenger foot wells that started showing up then?), so the heat wasn't an issue.

 

Okay...maybe the hippie comment was a little OT...but where do you find my logic lacking? My point on altering emission parts are correct. Your missing my entire point...The fact that you find running no cat on the track is okay and a street car not? How is that not backwards? And your whole comment on pre-74 cars (even if they would catch fire or not run well) still pollutes more than me not running a cat! Maybe the government should scrap all cars that don't run cats becasue it's bad for the envronment. But, you still find that okay? I'm just saying...there are other things to get all worked up about. I still find this thread funny.........

 

And Matt, you have a 5.0 302 EFI setup and harness in your car. Technically, you should be running a cat but you get around the law through a loop hole because your car is more than 25 years old. So you don't have to run a cat or do emissions testing. It doesn't matter if car was setup for it or not. Do you see where I'm going with this? I did the same thing with the '32 and '40 Ford's I built. The only thing that was original was the metal. Everything else was ProStreet form. We got away with all the emissions and such because it was technically "old". You think a 350 with a blower would pass emission? No way!
BTW, why does it really matter....you think this thread is gonna change the way one thinks? Not in the least. At the end of the day, I will still have a loud, cool sounding exhaust.

 

and I follow the numbers. Race cars don't really matter because there aren't that many of them, and they can be tuned to take advantage of no cat, and they don't log that many miles. Street cars are street cars, and there are over 250 million of them on the road. Exhaust out of them DOES make a difference, one car at a time! I'm old enough to remember LA smog in the 70s, and how much a difference emissions controls have made to cars in the SF Bay region.

The Mustang would have a cat if there were a place for it where the car wouln't torch itself. But there isn't. The fact that the car has FI in it means that it's much cleaner than it was with a carb, even if it's not "cat clean". The cat or no cat has to do with a 65 unibody construction with poor thermal insulation than what's making the car move.

There are programs to get older cars off the roads, in CA there was a time when any car you took to the crusher (if it was old enough) got you $500. Every time laws try to get written to get the older cars off the roads, they die because the poor can't really afford newer cars, and the social calculus comes into play, so the decision isn't based on just emissions output.

To be specifice, I find you logic lacking because you ignore the relative sizes of the car classes (street driven vs race only) and you persist in the logic that since there are worse polluters than you car, you don't really have to worry about what comes out of your tail pipe. Both of these positions don't hold under scrutiny.

But I freely admit that my standard is just as arbitrary as others are (it's to make the street cars as clean as practicle, damn the law! So I have a CAT on the Mini, but mods that aren't EPA or CARB correct, but the exhaust is as clean as if it were a complient car!) it's just that I like my standard because it meets the needs of society (keep emissions down) while allowing me to play (go ahead, swap the head!). PErsonally, I can't stand laws that are about form (needs a CARB sticker) as opposed to function (who cares what's on as along as it runs clean). But that's another thread.

I've been around the debate for a long, long time. I've never, ever, ever seen any good reason to not run cats on cars where it's fairly easy to do other than "I don't want to and it's my car".

Matt

 

Yes, there are lot of other worse polution sources then a Mini with no cat. Really, how much will one Mini with no cat add to the polution issue we all face. However, why add to the problem?

It really is just that simple.

 

Just because it's legal to drive a 900hp lead burning pre74' Hot Rods doesn't make it right...conversely, just because it's illegal to remove a cat from a modern 1.6 doesn't make it wrong...

To me, I'd feel a bit less hypocritical about caring for the environment driving a catless 1.6 than a lead burning 350 V8 anyday...

 

you're saying since I could do worse it's OK I don't do better. What's really at play is the marginal change in impact for this specific decision. It's a straw man to say it's better than a Chevy V8 (but to a Ford guy, Anything is better than an Chevy!) because driving a chevy has nothing to do with the decision to run your Mini with or without a cat.

gnatster got it right. Dress the pig up any way you want, it's still a pig!

I don't think we'll all agree here, but let's keep the discussion real.

1) If the fact that individual cars had no impact considering that each car is a small emitter compared to other existing sources ignors historical fact.

2) Comparing the relative impact of taking a cat off the mini compared to what one COULD do isn't sound reasoning. This is the worst kind of straw man argument.

That leaves us with the intellectually honest position "I thought about the deltas I percieve as a benefit to me and choose to run catless despite the incremental emissions harm that I create." If you do that, so be it. Just stand up and be counted! And for what it's worth, guys like me give less repect over that decision. But even though my neighbor has no cat on his street/track 355, and I don't agree with him on that, I still count him as a friend. we can agree to disagree without getting pissey...

Matt

 

Ya know, it's a proven scientific fact that the human brain is at peak performance in the 16-20 age range (really! I read it on the internet!), so you see, it is pointless to argue with teenagers, as they know every frickin thing!!!
The 20, 30, 40 extra years us old farts have had to learn extra stuff is wasted because our shrunken brains can't handle the load.

Get with the program, people!

 

You hit the nail on the head.

 

The ONLY reason why I chimed in on this thread is because I found it funny that you said it was okay not to run a cat on a race car. I know they are in small numbers but any which way you look at it...your still polluting. Agreed? So, where and who draws the line? That's all I was saying.

 

There are many gas powered polution producers, GPPP. In some states you can't buy a 5hp Briggs lawn mower or any 2 cycle trimmers.
I'm kind in Doc Os corner with a 1968 Triumph TR6c motorcycle. No cat, engine managment, Fi, just a 30mm carb. When it's started the polution level is the level of about 90 modern v6s, small v8s. And no I don't run leaded gas. This is not to say I never drive the bike. I do. Not very often.
I'm not sure an argument could not be made that the old ceramic cats were, in fact, bad for the enviroment ( sulpher dioxide ). The present day cat robs almost nothing, hp wise, compared to the old tech. Engine management has made an almost unbelievable difference in performance as well as CLEAN AIR. 15 years ago who would have thought you could make the numbers you can make today with a 2 liter engine ( with a cat ). If for no other reason using a cat to keep the cabin noise down would work for me. And, loud, well, it's been played ( nice loud = nice, bad loud = sucks ). Smoke & soot, need more? Tire dust, break dust, rust, broken glass, plastic, burning plastic.... Hey we realy do need less..... & soon.
Look who's talking, I'v got 5 cars, 3 shifter karts & a bike all of which have been hot rodded in 1 way or the other 4 of which are clean, verry clean.

Bottom line: Todays cats are good. Good enough that, in the last few years, OE ECUs need them to make power ( trust me here ). There is a reason you have 2 O2 sensors, 1 up, 1 down stream. This would take many pages of explanation. Simply put there are 2 EGT readings that the ECU can read that are used to, first protect your engine, second, make as much power as possible ( remember we're talking OE, not moded ). Also 200hp from a 1.6l is quite a feat. 30 years ago getting 200hp out of a SB 5l was a feat....

 

Cody...you are forgetting that the race track has it's own atmosphere seperate from the rest of the world...

 

I think you are mistaken me for Polizei

 

DOH!

 

Bottom line: Todays cats are good. Good enough that, in the last few years, OE ECUs need them to make power ( trust me here ). There is a reason you have 2 O2 sensors, 1 up, 1 down stream. This would take many pages of explanation. Simply put there are 2 EGT readings that the ECU can read that are used to, first protect your engine, second, make as much power as possible ( remember we're talking OE, not moded ). Also 200hp from a 1.6l is quite a feat. 30 years ago getting 200hp out of a SB 5l was a feat....[/quote]

This may account for the reason that I did not feel any performance gains without the cat . I do not think I lost power being catless but I know I did not gain anything . I was without a car for about a 2 week period so perhaps that was not enough time for the ECU to fully adapt. On another note I was at the dyno today and heard that the company that many of you have gotten the 02 "simulators " from have just been sued and have been ordered to buy back all the units they sold as well as pay a nifty fine . I have no other details other than what the dyno tech was telling us .I am just repeating what I heard today so take it for what it is worth. I am sure more info will follow shortly .

Randy
M7 Tuning

 

but the emmissions laws are for vehicles used on public roads. RAce cars are private property not run on public roads, so for the most part (not all parts) the bodies that govern the use of vehicles on public roads don't get to say boo about what happens there!

I'm actually very curious. How many actually believe that one car doesn't make a difference, and that the relative populations of types of cars don't matter, or that the influence of other consideration (like you can't force everyone to buy new cars tomorrow) shouldn't be in the mix? I'm more than will to stand up and be counted for my own personal compramise on the law and how I adhere to it (or don't). Why is that when this debate comes up I rarely hear "I don't care about the emissions, I do it because it makes me happy!", but I do hear tons of justification why it's not a problem.

One of the curses of going to school for almost a quarter centrury is that I've come across almost all subject matter at one time or another. One of the classes I took that I had no clue how usefull would be was symbolic logic. All the if A and B then C crap. Anyway, while it was dry, it sure makes it easy to look through all the words to see the concepts behind the vebiage. When I look at the explanations presented here for why to run without a cat, they are all BS except for the ones that say "I made my choice for my reasons and I'll accept that it's bad for others to some small degree". Oh, I forgot. I never see that one!

Matt

 

agreed. your all much to old to know things.

so wait, my cat is hairless?

 

I agree - I think every undergraduate education, regardless of discipline, should include some class that covers both logic and fallacies. Even a cursory knowledge of those two subjects will allow you to see through a lot of the B.S. that comes from a myraid of sources - the media, politicians, pseudo-scientists, etcetera.

Also, if you can find a copy of Darrell Huff's "How to Lie With Statistics", it's a funny, informative book. I think it's out-of-print (or at least it was the last time I checked), but there are still a lot of copies of it floating around.

 

This may account for the reason that I did not feel any performance gains without the cat . I do not think I lost power being catless but I know I did not gain anything . I was without a car for about a 2 week period so perhaps that was not enough time for the ECU to fully adapt. On another note I was at the dyno today and heard that the company that many of you have gotten the 02 "simulators " from have just been sued and have been ordered to buy back all the units they sold as well as pay a nifty fine . I have no other details other than what the dyno tech was telling us .I am just repeating what I heard today so take it for what it is worth. I am sure more info will follow shortly .

Randy
M7 Tuning[/quote]

No, there, most likely, was no power loss but without an O2 sim you would have had a CEL.These 2 O2 sensors are primarily meant for closed loop operation. There should be a power loss at the bottom, in theory, but may not be of any real note. On track, without the cat restriction & an exhaust designed for the car there would be some gain ( another discussion that has been beaten to death ).

Thanks for the heads up. I was never a big fan of the O2 sims ( they do work & for the most part the exhaust is clean ).

 

used that 50 pages of wisdom as our text book for the first part of the quarter!

Matt

 

Yep - it's been on the reading list for a *lot* of classes over the last 50 years, and with good reason.

And, it *is* back in print. Amazon has it here for less than $10 in paperback.