So my sister has a '98 accord EX 4cyl that had the cat stolen off of it. She's financially strapped and wants to patch it until after Christmas when she can afford a cat to put in. The mid pipe and flex pipes were hacksawed off. She's got a replacement flex pipe and we're hunting a junkyard replacement mid pipe which will be extended to make up the difference for now. We're in a non-inspect area, so that won't be an issue, and this is only temporary anyway.
So for all you Honda guys - how bad will the ECU freak out if the O2 readings are out-of-zone without the cat on it? Any cheap way to fool them without doing permanent changes to the system?
old_
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12/2/13 8:01 a.m.
yep, spark plug fouler tricks the ecu. Been running em for years on my catless saturns. Weld the shield so it looks like it has a cat and no ses light no problem for inspections.
Okay, so weld in the bung so the O2 sensor is actually exposed to the exhaust stream, or weld it on the outside of the pipe so the O2 is separated from the exhaust flow?
Not sure I understand why that works...?
ultraclyde wrote:
Okay, so weld in the bung so the O2 sensor is actually exposed to the exhaust stream, or weld it on the outside of the pipe so the O2 is separated from the exhaust flow?
Not sure I understand why that works...?
Weld in an O2 bung on the temporary exhaust. Take spark plug non fouler and make the little hole in the end where the O2 sensor will sniff from a little bit bigger than it currently is. Thread O2 sensor into the non-fouler. Then thread non fouler and attached O2 sensor into the exhaust. Voila!
The reason this works is that the engine burns pretty clean to begin with and the non fouler makes it so the O2 sensor only gets a little sniff of the exhaust as it passes by instead of just being bathed in it.
Hopefully that clears things up for you. I did this on my '98 Civic and it works like a charm.
Gotcha. Makes perfect sense now. Thanks guys, that's great.
