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Thread: Exhaust issues with multiple cat failures and replacements....

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    SLi Lurker Zangado1's Avatar
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    Exhaust issues with multiple cat failures and replacements....

    I am on my fourth pair of Magnaflow cats. The front and rear cats take turns failing within 2 or three months of each other. I start to hear a faint rattling sound at idle then I rev the car with my door open and hear the rattling even more while it decelerates. It has been a little over 2 months since I replaced the front one this time but not sure if its the front or rear now. What it is that keeps happening is the internals of the cats are failing and getting blown out through the tip as a powdery substance over time. I have an UEL header but I'm being told that is not the issue. My Subaru specialist is telling me that this is a common issue for these older 2.2 -2.5 EJ's when putting on after market cheap cats like Magnaflow or Eastern Catylitic. He told me that the only way to get this to stop is either buy a OEM exhaust off of a private person and saws all the cats off and put it on my car or buy an OEM because by law the salvage yards are not allowed to sell used cats for some reason. Either way I'm annoyed with this issue over dumb shit. I'm just glad that it is not screwing with the performance of the car. So I can put up with the rattle vs going to my exhaust dude and telling him I need another $130 replacement cat again. I would really like to either eliminate one of the two cats or gut one or both of them (I'm not a liberal so I don't care about the CO2). but that leaves me unsure of the CEL. I am familiar with the plug fowler trick but wondering if I gut the cats maybe I would need a fowler on both to stop a future CEL (my old friend P0420)? All I know is I had enough of chasing this issue for the last 2 years and would rather have no cats and no issues like my 05 LGT. The other issue is my 95 BK gets the sniffer up the tail pipe for emissions every year so I hate to do a delete and find out that I pulled my own pants down at the test and fail. Any ideas on this?
    1995 AWD Legacy L wagon 5MT (DD)
    2005 Subaru Legacy GT Limited 5MT

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    SLi Lurker Zangado1's Avatar
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    My latest update on the failed cats: Went to a new exhaust shop who are definitely more informative. The guy cut the one end of the cat off to expose the internal honeycomb ceramics to see if they are actually failing and he said that the ceramic material is not what's failing. According to him there is some type of high temp wrap that goes around the ceramic core while its assembled that gives a buffer to the outer casing. He said that that wrap is some how failing and burning up and allowing the internal ceramic core to dislodge and create all of the rattling I'm hearing. Sometimes it stops because it lodges itself in the encasement somehow I have noticed. So now because of my inspection coming up in May I'm going to have no choice but to find some decent used ones off of another 90's wagon and get them installed since there seems to be no other options.
    1995 AWD Legacy L wagon 5MT (DD)
    2005 Subaru Legacy GT Limited 5MT

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    SLi Lurker Zangado1's Avatar
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    Hopefully I finally found a cure to my Cat issues:. I went to the exhaust guy again after some more research on here and other forums and had dude cut off the second cat and put a straight pipe in with a new bung and a spacer for the O2 sensor. But while he had it off he looked into the first cat and said that it is hollowed out and empty? I said I didn't do that. He said that's why the second cat was clogged. Weird is I had no CEL? Now with it all back together what a difference in acceleration and more raspy with that Magnaflow on there. I already can see a fuel mileage increase and its been two days. I thought my fuel gage was broken! Only issue is now is I'm worried about inspection. I think I'm going to have to buy an emissions sticker for my month but get the car inspected honestly when its due. No CEL yet so I'm thrilled to say the least all around
    1995 AWD Legacy L wagon 5MT (DD)
    2005 Subaru Legacy GT Limited 5MT

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