Go catless with boost

[rj67]

That sounds great and you have some beautiful scenery in your area! Wow

I wish I has wide open roads in my area like that! I linked one of V8Venom's videos to that post. I watched his videos before I switching to AWE.

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[Dominant1]

if you have rasp Kooks race bullet mufflers remove it without sacrificing sound...

 

[Memz]

So after reading a few pages it seems stock cats are capable but still possible to fail.
Do they usually just fail and cause major damage with no signs or usually something that happens over weeks/months? First sign being smell etc? I’m only making like 550whp but have a 3.0 pulley on my 2300 Edelbrock and use it as a daily, last thing I want now is to worry about it like I did with OPG before I changed mine haha

 

[stang17]

So after reading a few pages it seems stock cats are capable but still possible to fail.
Do they usually just fail and cause major damage with no signs or usually something that happens over weeks/months? First sign being smell etc? I’m only making like 550whp but have a 3.0 pulley on my 2300 Edelbrock and use it as a daily, last thing I want now is to worry about it like I did with OPG before I changed mine haha

My stock cats and kooks high flow cats (regular version) both started smelling like sulfur as they began to fail. If you ever plan on using a 2 step you are going to want to get rid of the cats anyway. If you don't plan on ever using a 2 step, GESI makes a pricey set of ultra high performance cats that are capable of supporting over 1,000 hp. The GESI ones are unique where you really don't lose any hp, or very minimal if any at all. If I didn't use a 2 step, I'd would have already purchased the GESI ones as I thought the car had a better sound to it when it was catted.

 

[ice445]

So after reading a few pages it seems stock cats are capable but still possible to fail.
Do they usually just fail and cause major damage with no signs or usually something that happens over weeks/months? First sign being smell etc? I’m only making like 550whp but have a 3.0 pulley on my 2300 Edelbrock and use it as a daily, last thing I want now is to worry about it like I did with OPG before I changed mine haha

Cat wear is accelerated by the extra heat from boost, but it also depends how you drive it. If you do a 0-150 pull at WOT all the time, yeah they're gonna fail a lot faster. Most conservative tunes have cat over temp protection which dumps fuel to cool them down if they get too hot, this causes the ass smell. If they start melting/coming apart they can smell like that as well.

Honestly though at 550Whp the stock cats will probably hold up OK for a good while, especially if you aren't dogging it all the time for extended periods.

 

[Memz]

Cat wear is accelerated by the extra heat from boost, but it also depends how you drive it. If you do a 0-150 pull at WOT all the time, yeah they're gonna fail a lot faster. Most conservative tunes have cat over temp protection which dumps fuel to cool them down if they get too hot, this causes the ass smell. If they start melting/coming apart they can smell like that as well.

Honestly though at 550Whp the stock cats will probably hold up OK for a good while, especially if you aren't dogging it all the time for extended periods.

Yeah i don’t have any plans for 2 step or racing heaps just daily driving and the occasional hoon to remind myself it has the power, just trying to futureproof the car and make things reliable for the long run. I think OPG was the main Achilles heel of these cars, I might look into the Gesi cats stang17 mentioned since I legally need cats, but nice to know there will be warning signs instead of just sudden melted pistons lol

 

[ice445]

Yeah i don’t have any plans for 2 step or racing heaps just daily driving and the occasional hoon to remind myself it has the power, just trying to futureproof the car and make things reliable for the long run. I think OPG was the main Achilles heel of these cars, I might look into the Gesi cats stang17 mentioned since I legally need cats, but nice to know there will be warning signs instead of just sudden melted pistons lol

OP had aftermarket high flows which generally blow donkey dick in this particular application. The OEM ones have a really dense core with different construction that can shed heat better before giving up the ghost. With big power they're still gonna fail, but usually they don't go poof like that at least from what I've read. I can't speak from experience, just from random internet reading at 3AM. So take it with a grain of salt. The principles I explained are true, but your mileage may vary.

 

[Jmtoast]

18's and early 19's have issues. Ford released a tsb on them. I just had one replaced and am expecting the 2nd to go. If you read the Roush thread you will see that since most Roush guys try to keep the warranty they don't do headers with high flow or off road cats so all the 18 guys are having their cats fail with some early 19's having the same issue. My cat never smelled or anything just a lot of backfiring like I had dynamite back there before it went.

 

[givemeadollar]

Anyone have failures with stock cats and unmodified Whipple tune (with plugs properly gapped)? Removing cats isn't an option for some of us in states with strict emissions laws.

Yeah less than 7k miles and both oem cats were toasted on a 2019 whipple stage 1 supercharger with the whipple 50 state emissions legal tune.

 

[Ruiner46]

Yeah less than 7k miles and both oem cats were toasted on a 2019 whipple stage 1 supercharger with the whipple 50 state emissions legal tune.

As a counterpoint, I have 50k miles on my 2016 GT, 35k miles stage 2 supercharged with the Whipple tune. No issues. I'm actually pulling the cats for long tube headers at this point, and the cats look fine. I think a lot of it has to do with how you drive it. I only have a few quarter mile passes on the car, mostly street driven and I don't do many long full throttle pulls. I do live at around 6000ft altitude, so my car makes less power than people at sea level. That might also help.

 

[givemeadollar]

As a counterpoint, I have 50k miles on my 2016 GT, 35k miles stage 2 supercharged with the Whipple tune. No issues. I'm actually pulling the cats for long tube headers at this point, and the cats look fine. I think a lot of it has to do with how you drive it. I only have a few quarter mile passes on the car, mostly street driven and I don't do many long full throttle pulls. I do live at around 6000ft altitude, so my car makes less power than people at sea level. That might also help.

This is my weekend warrior so if its coming out of the garage as soon as its warmed up it will be at red line in 4th. I would definitely agree that driving habits will speed up or prolong the life of the cats depending on how you drive.

 

[Jmtoast]

As a counterpoint, I have 50k miles on my 2016 GT, 35k miles stage 2 supercharged with the Whipple tune. No issues. I'm actually pulling the cats for long tube headers at this point, and the cats look fine. I think a lot of it has to do with how you drive it. I only have a few quarter mile passes on the car, mostly street driven and I don't do many long full throttle pulls. I do live at around 6000ft altitude, so my car makes less power than people at sea level. That might also help.

2018's and early 19's have a tsb on cats and are being replaced left and right on boosted applications. he most likely has one of these mustangs, as do I.

 

[Torinate]

I keep hearing of cat temperature. What heat range should the cats be in? What is “too hot”?

I see on my nGauge there are cat temperature readings. Are those accurate?

Lund tuned with rear O2s Off but they still read temps...

So what’s safe and what’s not?

Thanks

 

[Bartly]

I keep hearing of cat temperature. What heat range should the cats be in? What is “too hot”?

I see on my nGauge there are cat temperature readings. Are those accurate?

Lund tuned with rear O2s Off but they still read temps...

So what’s safe and what’s not?

Thanks

On mine I regularly see #s in the 16**F range when going WOT. Never gets into the 1700s, I’d say it regularly sees 1650F, the. Cools to 1200 or so when driving around. I did 11 1/4 mile runs in about an 1 1/2 hours at the track a few weeks ago because there were no cars yet as it was still 100f outside and the sun was still up. I’m happy to report my factory cats are doing fine with 25k boosted miles with spinning tire WOT runs nearly daily. When I first put the blower on, the canned tune that came with the kit didn’t have cat protection turned on and the temps got to 1960F a few times before I realize it. They survived, but not sure how long they would have lasted that way. For reference I’m only at 600 WHP, so just an entry level, so not pushing it as hard as a lot of the guys out there.

 

[Andrew@Lethal]

Had my blower on less then a week. I've been getting on since I've had it but i wasn't expecting my cats to fail that fast. I have highflow ARH cats. Turned up the boost to 12lbs, made a couple pulls felt pretty good. On my way home leaving the shop, made a pull in 2nd switched to third and the car bogged, check engine light blinked a couple times and went off. Got off the next exit and drove it back to the shop. Cylinder 8 misfire code popped up on the scanner. He cleared the code, ran a couple test everything checked out fine but the car didn't have the same sound that I'm used to hearing. Took it back to shop. Took the exhaust down and noticed the driver side cats were 50% clogged. Cut the old cats out and welded some 3in stainless steel pipe in its place. Mechanic said I don't need a retune so I should be good to go. Moral of the story is get rid of your cats if you have a supercharger. I hope I didn't mess anything up

We can get you taken care of here at www.lethalperformance on some catless pipes. We can also get you taken care of on a custom tune from Lund racing and Palm Beach Dyno. Send me a message if you have any questions or would like to place an order.

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