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Cat got so hot it bubbled the paint on my side sill!

2K views 33 replies 16 participants last post by  VinnyRusso 
#1 ·
Looking for some advice so that I can eliminate some guess work. Yesterday my 97 GTS seemed to have a miss on acceleration and a loss of power. I thought initially that I may just have some bad gas. However, when I parked the car, I noticed smoke coming from my drivers side rocker sill and the heat was so hot that it discolored the paint on the sill and blistered the paint.

My initial guess is that raw fuel is dumping into the cat causing it to get too hot. I'm wondering if it could be a stuck injector, or maybe a bad plug or plug wire. Has anyone else had any similar experience?:confused:
 
#6 ·
If it's the original cat, it could be clogged up. A few years back, my sister-in-law had a Dodge pickup. Her husband was behind her driving at night and saw an orange glow under her truck. It got brighter and then there was basically a small explosion. She later told him the truck started running like shit and then she heard and felt a "boom".
 
#9 ·
My driver side cat was plugged as a result of the EVAP purge solenoid intermittently sticking open causing a vacuum leak in the driver side throttle body. It yellowed the paint and smelled like a hot glue gun. We had a saying when I worked in the auto industry - "Catalytic converters don't die, they are murdered". Except for rare manufacturing defects in cats, there is always an underlying cause that you'll want to fix.

That being said - find root cause, then ditch or replace cats. I chose the ditch option and like the sound. It does smell a bit exhausty though.
 
#12 ·
Similar thing happened to me. Eventually both sides will blister regardless of cat condition. On mine one side was always a few degrees hotter than the other (checked with temp gun not bs meter) and it always blistered about 15K sooner than the other. Every time I repainted I tried something different to stop the heat but it is inevitable that a 1200° cat, correctly functioning or clogged is gonna ruin the paint eventually.

Bottom line - ditch the cats. I suggest swapping with Moroso Spirals if you're concerned with sound. You get about 5 dbs more sound (again tested with sound meter not bs meter) and heat issues reduced considerably after that.
 
#13 ·
Ok - I just pulled the sill to check the extent of the heat damage and it doesn't look horrible. Visually scanning the engine bay, I did notice that the plug wires are original with a date code of 3-97 Do you think it would be worth a shot in the dark to try swapping them out first?
 
#18 ·
If you have woods behind your house, throw those fucking cats as far as you can into them.


Trust me on this.
 
#22 ·
Anyone that has "exhaust smell" after they pull the cats needs to find someone that knows how to tune a Viper. I have no cats and no "exhaust smell" whatsoever. And a perfect SCT tune.
 
#30 ·
It comes with a adhesive side, just clean the mating surface first. I bought it on Amazon, just look for sticky shield from Heat shield and armorshield. So far it was about $400 for everything, but I also insulated more area that you don't see. Yea I guess you can vent the sills, but I didn't want to hack anything and it really wont do shit if you're standing still.
 
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