Catalytic converter or no catalytic converter, the age old question when it comes to performance cars. The first thing that needs to be known is that the first cat’s that came out in 1974, were big, heavy, generated a lot of heat that actually burned cars down if you parked them in deep snow. The Akron PD lost several of their new Nova’s this way. The pellets used looked like kitty liter. They did not work very well and pollution reduction was minimal. The only thing they did well was create a huge restriction in the exhaust.
Now lets jump forward a couple of decades. No more kitty litter. No huge restriction and no more cars burning down. We have production cars pushing major HP numbers stock and all of them have catalytic converters. With production cars hitting numbers that our Fiesta ST’s for the most part will never see, cat’s are not a restriction to performance.
Back in the day (15 years ago) I worked for a whole sale parts house, so I had access to our suppliers and as a bonus their R/D departments. Catco® Products - Catalytic Converters & Exhausts Catalog | CarParts.com was one of them, in fact they were at that time a major suppliers to the big auto manufacturers around the world,. I was developing an exhaust system for my 98 Contour SE Sport. I wanted a performance cat, so I talked to one of their R/D engineers. Also as a side note, Catco at that time manufactured Magnaflows performance catalytic converters. According to the engineer “Performance” cats did not exist per say. If you wanted a “Performance” cat you used one from a bigger engine. In the case of my V-6 Contour, I ended up using a 2in. dual inlet, 2.5in. single outlet cat from a 5.7 Camaro.
Now cats are measured by cell count, the smaller the number the more free flowing it is supposed to be. Is it? Well it sounds good on paper. Being that I no longer have the hook with Catco, I have to trust the info I can dig up on the net. Being kind of a Green person and a hot rodder, I’ll run a cat, just one with a low cell number.
Now lets jump forward a couple of decades. No more kitty litter. No huge restriction and no more cars burning down. We have production cars pushing major HP numbers stock and all of them have catalytic converters. With production cars hitting numbers that our Fiesta ST’s for the most part will never see, cat’s are not a restriction to performance.
Back in the day (15 years ago) I worked for a whole sale parts house, so I had access to our suppliers and as a bonus their R/D departments. Catco® Products - Catalytic Converters & Exhausts Catalog | CarParts.com was one of them, in fact they were at that time a major suppliers to the big auto manufacturers around the world,. I was developing an exhaust system for my 98 Contour SE Sport. I wanted a performance cat, so I talked to one of their R/D engineers. Also as a side note, Catco at that time manufactured Magnaflows performance catalytic converters. According to the engineer “Performance” cats did not exist per say. If you wanted a “Performance” cat you used one from a bigger engine. In the case of my V-6 Contour, I ended up using a 2in. dual inlet, 2.5in. single outlet cat from a 5.7 Camaro.
Now cats are measured by cell count, the smaller the number the more free flowing it is supposed to be. Is it? Well it sounds good on paper. Being that I no longer have the hook with Catco, I have to trust the info I can dig up on the net. Being kind of a Green person and a hot rodder, I’ll run a cat, just one with a low cell number.
