Downside of Pre-cat removal?

You mean other than it being illegal in the US? Weather or not they pursue you for it is a different question but clearly it is illegal to alter the emissions system.

 

California emmissions nazis.... LOL.... In AZ they dont do a visual check for cats... just plug in... No CEL = PASS.

 

My 430 has challenge headers. (no pre cats) Made it louder, not too much though. Got CEL every 20 miles. O2 extenders fixed it.
Maybe get some euro headers as they have no pre cats. That's if the CS actually has pre cats?

 

After installing aftermarket headers on my F430 I installed O2 extenders from Fabpseed. I didnt get any CELs for about 1.5k miles and recently I began getting CEL P0430 related to the cats and would come back even after clearing. I ended up buying mini cats from bigdaddiesgarage.com for about $100 bucks ($100 less than Fabspeed's mini cats), screwed those on to the secondary cats, used the previous fabseed O2 extender elbow on top of the mini cats, screwed on the O2 sensors, cleared the CEL, disconnected my battery, and that was that. I drove my car about 200 miles over the last week and no CEL .

 

+1 Why reinvent the wheel. Did roughly the same for my 430. The only downside to the removal has been the smell of running too rich on start up.

 

Federal law prohibits removing stock exhaust system catalysts and replacing them with anything other than more stock catalysts.

Lots of folks seem to ignore this law.

However, if you sell the car, and the buyer finds the system gone, you are liable for the repair, EVEN if you disclose the change to the buyer prior to the sale. There is no, "as is-where is" rule that pertains to the exhaust system.

Oh, and if you don't fix it for the buyer and he gets pissy? It's a big fine from the EPA, and then you STILL have to fix the exhaust.

I get that folks want to play with their car to maximize performance, but what do you really gain? 4 or 5 HP? and a constant CEL when the O2 censor freaks out?

There's the biggest downside. Someday you sell the car and your buyer decides he wants it put back to stock after he buys it.

D

 

I am one of those daredevils who decided to get aftermarket headers.
I don't care if it is illegal or not, I didn't do it for the 5 hp gain but because the original part fails and you are risking an engine rebuilt.
And yes they do fail, my headers began to rattle, would debris eventually sucked in? I do not know, it is more probable to happen in a 430 because the pre cat is closer to the engine bay, but I wouldn't spend more money to replace a known defective part with the same defective part because it is "illegal" to install aftermarket parts.



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Have a euro car, no precats. Replaced with fabspeed. I also removed the air injection rails, my euro was federalized so I had air rails on it.
No codes on my end, bottom line is that you'll likely need o2 extenders. No reason you can't do it.
I thought that the CS had the euro style headers anyway, without the pre cats.

 

No precats here! Just some nice spaghetti!
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US CS have pre-cats.

There is a thread recently where a CS owner was quoted $40k+ by Ferrari of Seattle to replace his entire exhaust system due to pre-cat failure. So the risk seems to be not only potential ingestion by the engine, but also damage to the main cats (and - if you believe FoS - even the "muffler" can).

If I was keeping my CS, I'd put aftermarket headers on it and leave the cats (or switch to hi-flow) and keep the stock muffler can. But, mine is for sale, so its got OEM exhaust throughout.

 

Did you install 02 extenders in your euro car with Fabspeed? Or you are just saying someone might need 02 extenders?




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I went and re-read the thread. The OP said "He took the cost of replacing the muffler off as well, because he said that it can be done at another time, but that it should be done at some point because it is leaking the fiber glassing material - an additional $4300".

So...FoS says the can was damaged and should be replaced. Please recall that I didn't say what that OP was having done or when. I said "So the risk seems to be not only potential ingestion by the engine, but also damage to the main cats (and - if you believe FoS - even the "muffler" can)."

Which, per the OP in the thread in question, is true.

Odd that you incorrectly "corrected" me. And accused me of not speaking the truth (please use your best reading comprehension skills and re-read what I wrote and hopefully you will come to understand that what I said is "true" per the OP). Oddly defensive and righteous of you. Must suck to be embarrassingly wrong when being so righteous. (obviously being called out for "not speaking the truth" ticked me off...I have no idea why you did that. This thread is about the potential consequences of precat failure, so my post was highly relevant and accurate.)

 

By the way, you are generally a great contributor so my intention wasn't to slam you. I apologize if it came across like that. I did feel that dealers and indis are too often slammed so we need to be very explicit and correct when we are making what is clearly an inflammatory statement about one of them.

Like you I just went back and read that thread again. Post 1 clearly says "estimate for new exhaust system from a Ferrari dealer. Includes replacement of both exhaust manifolds, catalytic convertors and oxygen sensors." That does not say muffler can. Post 7 has a spreadsheet that shows the muffler BUT it is not included in the posted copy of the estimate. As for leaking the fiberglass, that has come up enough I would say that it is pretty common on 430s. From the post you quoted, the dealer did note the problem but I don't see that the muffler issue was attributed to the precat failure.

And yes, your statement that "FoS says the can was damaged and should be replaced." is factual BUT potentially misleading because from what we can tell FoS didn't make any claims of causal relationship to the precat failure.

 

Are you discussing another thread??
I don't see any of your post 1 and post 7 references


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Thanks for the reply - sorry I was a bit touchy

fwiw, I wasn't attempting to say anything negative about FoS. My post was only trying to be on-point about this topic and add that the risk list of potential bad things from pre-cat failure is down-stream too (cats and even muffler).

 

Not to nitpick, but I don't think the muffler failure of leaking out the "white stuff" is related to the pre-cat failure. That is an independent failure as far as I understand.

 

I hope that's right (like I said, I find it hard to believe the pre-cat material could get all the way to the can and damage it). That said, fwiw, I don't see any statements that lead to a conclusion that it was independent either. I'm not sure I would hear of any muffler can failures for other reasons, but that's not something I've read about here anyways. Regardless, for this thread, the "risk" (however remote or not) is of both upstream and downstream damage from the pre-cat material coming lose and going places. We have heard of instances of engine's blowing from that material here over the years and we have heard of cat damage. Expensive issues if they arise.

 

I have read of plenty muffler failures with the white powder, and have never seen it correlate with pre-cat failure, so pretty sure it is unrelated and an independent failure. Just sounds like that particular car has some issues to get on top off to make it "perfect".