Catalytic converters

JASONPYZO

MEMBER
1989 CHEVROLET CORVETTE
5.7L
V8
RWD
AUTOMATIC
143,500 MILES

This car has three catalytic converter. On it and I noticed one day when I hit the throttle hard a couple of times that pieces of the insides of the converter came out the tail pipe. So I ended up taking of the y pipe that has 2 small cats. On it and the one where the 2 pipe go into the other cat. Off, when I got them off I looked inside the single one and it was gutless, nothing in there, I put a scope in the other end where it bolts to the exhaust manifold and from what I could see it looked to be ok but I couldn't see everything. So do you think I should replace them or would it be fine the way it is? There is only one O2 sensor on the y-pipe before the cat. So no code was thrown and would it make the car run worse with the cats. Gone or what?

1 Reply

STEVE W.

MECHANIC
13,573 POSTS

I would replace the entire exhaust system, all the converters and the mufflers (mainly because of the pieces of the converter that are probably still stuck in them and could cause problems). If the car is in good shape overall I'd probably look at putting a stainless system on it. More money but you won't need to touch it for a long time.

The converters won't make it run worse, and they will help keep the air cleaner.