Who the hell did this to my exhaust, and why?

[jonbarrett]

My car nearly failed its MOT on emissions and, after taking a look under the car, the chap at Austec suggested it might be because someone had cut the cats out of the exhaust and welded them back in at the rear, just before the silencer. Everyone was scrathing their heads why this had been done.

Why would someone do this? What is the point?

I guess this might be the right time to rip the whole system out and replace it with something better. Suggestioins please for a good road system that sounds excellent, has good looking tail pipes, and maybe gives me a little more power.

[AlVal]

previous owner decatted it, and at a later time, just to get it to pass the mot, stuck them back in at the easiest place possible?

[cerbfan]

You could ask Paul to let you hear mine. I believe the engine should be back in now. Its the new ACT system with cherry bomb silencers and Paul has said it sounds great. It also has the big bore manifolds but would not think this would alter the sound to much.

There has been a lot of praise for the SP system however this is quite a bit more expensive.

[cerbielee]

The SP system is very quiet for a sports system! i went out with TVR Edd and he was'nt that impressed with the sound either! my 4.2 was quite a bit louder and sounded much better!
Having said that the quality looked superb

[Tvr_Edd]

cerbielee said:

The SP system is very quiet for a sports system! i went out with TVR Edd and he was'nt that impressed with the sound either! my 4.2 was quite a bit louder and sounded much better!
Having said that the quality looked superb

Yep the quality of the SP exhaust system is fantastic plus you have a well researched and well tested exhaust which will get you on pretty much any trackday but it is quieter than normal. going from my sports pipes to that was a shock to the system, i thought i'd left the engine behind!

I was hoping to have a back to back comparison of the power benefits but I ran into some difficulty and the SP exhaust now has a new home with a fellow PH owner while my car hibernates for the summer.

I'm not sure what exhaust i'll have on mine when its all done, but something between SP and sports pipes would be nice with the power increase seen similar to SP...

[morebeanz]

If you ever intend to track your car, you have to be very careful these days. Most exhausts are well over the limit for these, apart from the SP exhaust.

[trackcar]

jonbarrett said:

My car nearly failed its MOT on emissions and, after taking a look under the car, the chap at Austec suggested it might be because someone had cut the cats out of the exhaust and welded them back in at the rear, just before the silencer. Everyone was scrathing their heads why this had been done.

Why would someone do this? What is the point?

I guess this might be the right time to rip the whole system out and replace it with something better. Suggestioins please for a good road system that sounds excellent, has good looking tail pipes, and maybe gives me a little more power.

Do you have any info about your car? ie previous owners or reg number, or just a colour pic for us? I've seen one car like you describe so it might be one that i've seen in here .. but won't know unless you can get some other identifying info over, cheers

[jonbarrett]

I'll try and jack the rear of the car today and take a pic.

[marcus1970]

Any pics yet?

MB

[hugepiece]

This sounds a bit like the strange system ive just taken off my car. Someone cut the intermediates in the middle and fitted some strange free-flow aftermarket cats in a staggered fashion, then welded the whole lot onto the backbox. So when I noticed it falling to bits I had to buy a whole system. Did yours have standard CATS? If not maybe someone found cheap alternative or free flow CATs and just bodget it all to fit.

[jonbarrett]

Pics arn't great but they show where the pipes have been cut just before the silencer and two cats installed slightly offset to each other. I guess it will have to all go but I'm interested to hear why someone went to such bother.

[trackcar]

Not the car I was thinking of then .. I've seen a cerbie with cats towards the rear of the intermediate pipes but they were aftermarket versions not the std TVR cats.

[marcus1970]

jonbarrett said:

My car nearly failed its MOT on emissions and, after taking a look under the car, the chap at Austec suggested it might be because someone had cut the cats out of the exhaust and welded them back in at the rear, just before the silencer. Everyone was scrathing their heads why this had been done.

Why would someone do this? What is the point?

I guess this might be the right time to rip the whole system out and replace it with something better. Suggestioins please for a good road system that sounds excellent, has good looking tail pipes, and maybe gives me a little more power.

Any pics of the car?

MB

[hugepiece]

trackcar said:

Not the car I was thinking of then .. I've seen a cerbie with cats towards the rear of the intermediate pipes but they were aftermarket versions not the std TVR cats.

Jules - was that car a black '99 4.5? If so it may have been mine. The CATS were some strange kind of sports free-flow ones apparantly.

[TT Tim]

That's interesting, that was exactly what I was planning to have done to my car when i had a new exhaust fabricated.

Some insight into why I was thinking about having it done...

I experienced 2 small fires in my car, both due to overfueling and subsequent overheating of a cat' causing it to hear up to such a temperature that the glue on the fire proofing caught fire.

Where the cats' are situated does not leave much clearance to the heat shielding for ventilation and isolation from the heat shield.

My thoughs were to move the cats further back and stagger them (as per your pic) so that they had more 'air' around them and limit the chances of them igniting surrounding bodywork etc.

Guess I may not have been alone in my thinking.

Tim