Yes, they are plug n play.
I
Yes, they are plug n play.
I made my personal (not scientifically proven, but logical) flow test with a stream off compressed air, comparing a perfect stock unit to mine. Leaving the stock cat, the air is a diffused breeze, while it leaves my metal unit nearly as powerful as blown trough a test pipe. Interesting is a empty case of an stock unit. Its resistance to airflow is not as high as one with a intact monolith, but still very restrictive. Fits to my personal feeling it does not improve performance to empty the stock cases.
I must admit, there are two converter versions, the Ansa cat being better than the one made by Zeuna Augsburg, compared by flow and durability.
The hyper flow version places the lambda directly in the exhaust stream, this is not necessary and causes turbulence. Remember, it is heated. And I don’t think it will be covered by deposits, as the old converters have none at that position if examined.
My last cat was definitely not melted, but the wire mesh holding the monolith changed it’s position and the ceramic touched the casing and broke. All defective cats I had were not melted, but broken. I must admit, they all sure saw a few minutes, maybe 10 or more, flat out on a after midnight Autobahn before failing, with “Slow Down” flashing. But the problem seems more high vibrations with uneven pressure on the ceramics tilting them.
The metal converter is a up to date design, it is a heat shield itself. The outer part of the
reactor is not involved in the catalytic process, and acts like a stainless multi layer shield. That’s what I was told by the company that sold it to me. They don’t get red hot like you sometimes see it on pictures of engines on test stands, because they are for more than 250 HP and see a maximum of 160.
In fact the lowered back pressure should even reduce temperatures in the exhaust manifold.
To tell the truth, building them is not that much work. 4-6 hours and you are done with a pair, using no sophisticated tools. Welder, angle grinder, a stepped drill, that’s all. Sourcing the parts was the hard part.
Chris
