New Cat

[Jonester 0]

Apparently the plonker I bought mine from had the cat removed which has only a negligible result and is therefore completely pointless i was told today. Soooooo, can anyone tell me where i can get a new cat from and how much can i expect to pay? Mine is a K reg VR6. Thanks.

[Ford 0]

Yeah I have the same thing K reg vr decatted, I am going to stick with mine for a while and experiment with the MOT and see if it gets through. If it does then I am not changing, if not I may consider a sports cat... Original VW cats are really expensive, although they do come up secondhand every so often for about £30. I had one but it wasnt good enough to put on so still got a powerflow decat pipe. I have left it so it is easy to put a cat on if I find a decent one.

 

Apparently its a grey area regarding MOTs as k reg is only just after regulations came in, so could get away with it.

[nephilim 0]

I too have a k reg, decatted VR6 that I've recently bought. It's MOT is also due so I am wondering the same things...I think I might take it down the MOT centre tomorrow so I'll report how I get on.

 

I think K is a year after CATS became compulsory so technically the car should have one. My understanding is that as long as the car passes an emissions test though you should be OK. I would add that my car's been decatted for a few years and has alsways easily passed these tests but then the engine was rebuilt 10k miles ago and I think it's running very cleanly.

[Ford 0]

Let us know how you get on at the MOT with emissions tests.

 

That's right, august 92 was the year regs came in, so K is after. Although according to Steve Mac, 92-94 is a grey area because not all cars had cats until sometime in 93, so you could get away with it, as long as the car passes emissions test. I think a cat has to pass test if made after 94.

 

Mines been decatted a few years too and seems to have got through MOTs okay will see in May. My engine was done a couple of years ago too.

[Blue_Joe 0]

I've currently got 2 cats (looking after them for my folks) Today I arranged to have my place de-catted as one of the little buggers keeps pooping everywhere but the litter!

[Jonester 0]

I should add that the reason this has come to light is that my recently acquired VR6 has just failed it's mot on the emissions test. The engine was only rebuilt 3k miles ago and is in tip top condition hence me having a new cat fitted today. Can't get the bloody thing taxed till then so I'm itching to get my hands on the little beauty and have some therapeutic acceleration. lol

[Kevin Bacon 5]

Did they tell you what part of the emissions it failed on? Could be the MAF or Lambda probe causing an over-rich mixture.

[Jonester 0]

He checked all that, said it's deffo down to the cat by pass.

[Kevin Bacon 5]

So it failed on Nitrogen Oxide, Carbon Monoxide and Hydrocarbon content then?

 

The Lambda probe is there to keep the mixture to 14.7:1 (Stoich) and thus you can pass the CO2 content test without a cat.

 

He was obviously strict on NOx, CO and Hydrocarbons.....

[Jonester 0]

He fitted the cat and it passed with flying colours so I've finally got my mot certificate! Whoopeeee! lol It actually failed on the C02.

[stevemac 0]

Jonester, De-catting a normally aspirated engine usually makes no difference at all to performance & sometimes hinders it, due to the reduced back-pressure.

 

Real de-catting performance gains are to be had with forced-induction engines (super/turbo charger)

[nephilim 0]

I went to the MOT station but the wait was a little too long so I didn't bother in the end.

 

My VR6 is going into VW next Friday for an annual service (to keep up the vwsh) so I will get them to MOT as well. I have the cat from the previous owner so hopefully even if it fails on emissions they'll be able to somehow fit it / pass it.

 

Previous owner has told me that the car has passed the last two mot emission tests (easily) without the cat so will have to see!

[nephilim 0]

Just to finish this off. My VR6 failed it's MOT at VW (Basingstoke) for a couple of reasons, one of them being the emissions test - the CO2 was too high.

 

I wasn't happy with the service at the garage because amongst other things I asked them to reset the ECU but I had one of their engineers tell me it couldn't be done. When speaking to them it became clear they didn't have a clue. Anyhow it maintained vwsh.

 

Took the car to my local MOT place and again it failed on the emissions so on went the CAT and it passed the MOT. So it looks as if the CAT maybe is required to get it through the test, I'm sure my engine's running OK. The only thing now is that since the CAT's gone back on the idling's much rougher so I assume the ecu will need to be reset to account for this.

 

Car goes into the bodyshop next month for a new wing and the bonnet and driver's door to be resprayed. Got a good price locally (Camberley) so will report on the quality of the work.

 

Dave