The other day I noticed a weird metal noise when hitting the gas or breaking hard, accompanied by a p0420 CEL.

I’ve decided from some searching that what I’m hearing when i hit the gas or stop very fast is pieces of my cat ( the shards of broken ceramic?) moving around in my muffler? Not sure where these pieces have gone.

Anyway, I need a new CAT. What’s the prevailing thought on just getting an aftermarket midpipe versus the OEM. Search has informed that this is often a cheaper option, but what’s the downfalls, and what pipes are people using?

Also can I just take my CAT off and run without one until inspection time rolls around?

How much damage is currently being done. Had to make an emergency 500 mile trip this weekend due to a family death with the car in this shape. Interestingly I got 21mpg and the car seems to run fine? Possibly a little sluggish.

So basically my question is. Did I diagnose this correctly? What’s my cheapest option. 2004 5 speed 85,000 ( hurray for missing out on the 80k warranty)

Not looking to spend $1500 on a car worth 7

Thanke

 

your stock plugs/wires suffer at least from what i know. id throw a straight pipe on it borrow a cat for inspection :P

 

You live near me don't you?
Yes, you can get a midpipe until inspection time or you can get a high performance cat pipe from either rx7.com (Rotory Performance Supercat), http://www.rx7store.net/category_s/300.htm, http://www.corksport.com/corksport-p...e-for-rx8.html or http://blackhaloracing.com/products-page/exhaust/ .

 

alnielson- I live in Clifton Park New York. Yourself?

Do you think I Correctly identified the issue?
Does Something like this fail inspection?
http://www.good-win-racing.com/Mazda...t/61-0451.html

 

Highly likely.
The Racing Beat part is a resonated midpipe. Not a catalytic converter pipe. The links I gave you were for a cat pipe which would be much cheaper than buying one from Mazda.

 

So the corksport piece or the rx7store piece would pass inspection?
Is that all i would need to purchase to replace the CAT. I guess im just confused because I cant understand why the mazda part costs over $1000 and these come in at $300.

Interesting.

 

We have the ODB II test here. No visual inspection, so it would pass. In CA they have a visual inspection and it would not pass.

 

Where is here? Do I in fact live near you?

The difference between the Cocksport single resonator and dual rsonator is only related to decibals? Or is there more to it.

Thanks for the help!

 

Do you have any idea what a midpipe means ?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+a+midpipe

and do you know what the pipes you were showing? they are ALL mid pipes.

NY has OBD II test and with a Mid pipe I can 99.999% guaranteen that you will fail

 

Hey nycgps thanks for contributing nothing! but i hope for both our sakes you got some amusement from your really really funny Google link. I couldn't stop laughing and realizing how dumb i was..... I mean I suppose the real question is why bother even having active forums these days, Google in fact has basically every question covered regarding almost any topic. So lets just lock up every forum on the internet as its 99% of the time just a rehash of the same information.

Seeing as it was already covered that midpipes would fail inspection, the new question was whether the high performance cat pipe from rx7store would be a good solution to replacing the cat, passing inspection, etc etc.

Thanks

 

because even in this forum there is at LEAST 1000 threads about the question you just asked. and oh look at the top of the site, there is a god damn tab called "SEARCH"

You need a CAT to pass inspection. simple. doesn't matter what kind of CAT.

but would the cat last? Search button up there ?

Forum is a place for information, its for people who is WILLING to find them, not for people asking the others to "spoon fed" their sorry *** with info.

 

Just listed one in the for sale section

 

Aftermarket catalyst elements tend to deteriorate rather quickly given the heat the rotary outputs. I know RP has a good warranty about returning their hi-flo cat if it fails but it's not something all too feasible. Just buy a used oem cat and call it a day.