De catting

[Dickie Dastardly]

I am swithering about fitting decat pipes to my Tuscan and am looking for a little feedback on the following -

- The car presently has straight through Powertech end cans, would decatting make it too loud inside the cabin (it's presently pretty comfortable).

- why do people fit "decat chips"? And why do they appear not to be required in all cases?

- the car was decatted when I bought it but had standard end cans, does that suggest it would not require chipping or could the straight through end cans influence this?

Cheers
Richard

[so called]

I have decatted and also have Powertech straight through cans.
Yes, its quite loud in the cab but my Wife and myself don't have a problem, including annual drives to Spain etc.

There is another thread currently running on here I posted a Youtube link in it.

I was recommended to get the decat chip when the work was done and duly drove down to Coventry where the chip was changed.

Cant answer your technical questions but the other thread had some info on that.

Cheers,
Tony.

[Malcster]

I'm guessing the only way to tell if its been decat-chipped is to crack open the ECU and check the board?

[Dickie Dastardly]

Well fitted the decat pipes tonight and fired up the car while still on axle stands in the garage. Didn't like the sound, was to loud and seemed to lack crispness; it's still up on the stands and am going to refit the catts - much to the disgust of my 14yr old son...

[tofts]

Funny as my Tuscan is de-catted, but sounds OK and perfectly fine at cruising speed, so must have a decent exhaust on it specific to the purpose. Having never actually looked, I wouldn't know. Although I know what you mean about the crispness, was following a friends Tamora and it didn't ha;f sound different. To which he also commented on the same!

[andypg]

Sorry to hijack this thread but i'm about to decat my tuscan for a couple of reasons.The main reason is the heat has started to crack the powder coating off of the chassis.I was wondering what treatment is recommended for the rust and what heat protection/shield material are people using around this area.The second reason is my car must be the quietest tuscan ever,so a few pops and bangs are needed!

[e46m3c]

Ive just ordered a pair from Clive F (FB Fabrications) They should arrive tomorrow.

Im still unsure on this whole chip situation!

Get a different story from everyone I speak to.

What does the chip actually do?

[Dickie Dastardly]

tofts said:

Funny as my Tuscan is de-catted, but sounds OK and perfectly fine at cruising speed, so must have a decent exhaust on it specific to the purpose. Having never actually looked, I wouldn't know. Although I know what you mean about the crispness, was following a friends Tamora and it didn't ha;f sound different. To which he also commented on the same!

I think there were possibly two issues -

1 - As it's a Tuscan S there is no mid pipe silencer (which there is on standard Tuscan exhausts).
2 - My end cans are straight through.

I'm sure there'll be plenty who'll like it straight through with no silencing whatsoever; comes down to personal preference I guess....

Cheers

[andypg]

I also have a pair of clive f decats coming tommorow. My tuscan is due for an mot at the end of May so will fit after that.I will report back how it goes with my standard exhaust system with no ecu chip.

[Richie C]

Clive's decats and fully sleeved standard cans here, sounds fantastic in my opinion. The noise that comes out of it on the overrun is sensational.

[so called]

I posted earlier that my decat with powertech cans is quite loud in the cabin.
It is but having got her out for the spring and driven to Germany, can't say I noticed noise.

Edited by so called on Thursday 28th April 21:58

[Pootus]

Hi there,

We just had the Cats removed by Track V Road from our Early mk1 Tuscan. The resulting sound is better & not too loud. It was mentioned that we did not need to get the ECU re-chipped and certainly the 20 mile drive home did not seem like anything was wrong.

These are the cats that were removed:






It seems like not a moment too soon either! The large end (I'm told) is the end the gasses enter from the engine & as you can see one is badly melted inside & the other has a large amount (perhaps 25%) of the contents missing... where has it gone? I hate to think it was sucked into the engine & how hot must they get to melt???

Edited by Pootus on Thursday 28th April 21:17

[Dickie Dastardly]

Jings, those Catt's have almost self de-catted!!

Possibly caught in the nick of time as i've heard that debris from failing Catt's can be sucked back into the engine on over-run....

[Pootus]

Also, just informed our insurance company about the de-catting and they cancelled the policy with 7 days notice and no refund for the remaining 6 weeks of the policy. All I can say is avoid Performance Direct... A bunch of complete bds!

[anonymous-user]

How do the De catted'd cars pass the MOT ?
Mine has been near to a fail before with them in . Have you MOT'd a car without ?

[Andy_mr2sc]

Have you driven it since removing the cats? Mine looked like that when I removed them and it made a huge difference to the performance. I'd guess they were sapping 20/30hp in that state.
Crap news about your insurance company.

Regarding mot time, I generally find a crate of beer or a bottle of the testers favourite tipple helps to get the emissions down to the required levels.

[wnegus]

Keep hold of of the old cats regardless of how bad they are, wrap them up and have them in your boot come MOT test time and say they are in the boot if needed and fingers crossed they will turn a blind eye to it ??

[wnegus]

Keep hold of of the old cats regardless of how bad they are, wrap them up and have them in your boot come MOT test time and say they are in the boot if needed and fingers crossed they will turn a blind eye to it ??

Edited by wnegus on Saturday 30th April 18:11

[Basil Brush]

e46m3c said:

Ive just ordered a pair from Clive F (FB Fabrications) They should arrive tomorrow.

Im still unsure on this whole chip situation!

Get a different story from everyone I speak to.

What does the chip actually do?

It contains a map designed for a car with no cats, so the fuelling etc is slightly different.

[Basil Brush]

Dickie Dastardly said:

Well fitted the decat pipes tonight and fired up the car while still on axle stands in the garage. Didn't like the sound, was to loud and seemed to lack crispness; it's still up on the stands and am going to refit the catts - much to the disgust of my 14yr old son...

I didn't like mine with decats and sleeved cans. It was far too raspy and just loud for the sake of it, if that makes sense. I played around with the length of sleeving but ended up with some small perforated end cans which leave most of the volume and the bangs but get rid of the raspy, harsh sound.