Quad Four Throttle Body

[Philbar71]

Soooo for kicks and giggles I picked up a quad 4 TB at a junkyard for $40 and stuck it on. It gave a bit more pull at about 3.5K and up but its still slow once it hits second gear.

Anyways, lol, I noticed my gas mileage is dropping by a good bit also... I used to get a good 24MPG city, now Im seeing like 18, 19. Car is mostly stock. Mods include MSD coils, WAI intake, and a Dynomax Super turbo. Anybody else throw one of these on and notice crappy gas mileage?

[spyhunter]

probably from you stepping on the pedal more "testing" it out.

[Philbar71]

Well I drove it easy and burned through another tank of gas. I got 20MPG this time. Idk. Im going to do some highway driving today and see what I get. Usually I see around 30-33.

Also, my cat is sounding like something is broken loose inside it. Does this often happen?

[Lucalare]

That's the problem, your cat is broken/plugged, which causes exhaust restriction, which causes bad mileage.

[Philbar71]

Yeah, cat is sounding worse now. not like its plugged, just sounds like theres loose change rattling around in it.

So to replace it, would it be alright to clamp a new one on until I get the whole exhaust done?

[Ttop191]

yeah, no need to mess with the whole exhaust system, just have the cat replaced, not a big job at all

[heineck]

yea but if hes lookin for a reason to have a catback done. id say wait and do it all at once. that was the reason i used to justify a catback lol

[widbyj]

In many cases replacing the OEM cat is more expensive than having a cat-back upgrade using a generic cat. I recommend finding a shop you can trust, usually friends can help you with this, and see what they come up with once they look underneath. Odds are that you are also close to needing a muffler or pipe work if the cat has finally failed. Sometimes its smarter to spend a little more once than go cheap twice..... IMHO

[Philbar71]

^ Yeah, that makes sense. I was just thinking of getting a magnaflow cat and cutting off the stock one and clamping on the magnaflow. OR wait for a few more paychecks and get a header and full exhaust done. I already have a Dynomax.

[Lucalare]

If you don't have an emissions test coming up and you're ok with having an SVS light on you could just replace the cat with a piece of pipe until you get the whole system done. You could get the right length of pipe with both sides expanded, and the clamps for like 15 bucks at any exhaust shop.

[Philbar71]

Yeah no emissions test here, but without a cat wouldn't it smell funny?

[Ttop191]

^ yeah you'll get a really nasty sulphur smell, but just drive faster and you won't smell it :p

[Lucalare]

It'll smell slightly like rotten eggs, but unless you stick your face in the exhaust or let it idle in a garage it shouldn't be bad.

[Philbar71]

What makes the cat fall apart like that. Its stupid lol. Its sounding horrible now, like somebody threw a million quarters in there.

[Ttop191]

well my guess is that with the new TB the ECU couldn't adjust fuel characteristics properly causing you to run rich...the extra fuel going into your exhaust reacted with the chemicals in the cat and caused it to burn up, so all that rattling you hear inside there is little burnt up bits of the honeycomb

[Philbar71]

Ehhhhh.... Its actually been quietly rattling for a while now. Ever since the crappy coil packs died about a year ago. lol.

But when the coil packs died I had to drive it home, like 15 miles on 2 cylinders. So the other two just dumping fuel in to the exhaust prolly didnt help the cat. lol.

[Ttop191]

^ that definitely sounds like the source of your problem, because now that i think of it...larger TB would have caused it to run lean not rich -insert facepalm here- so yeah, just sounds like shit finally hit the fan then

[Philbar71]

Yeah. I bet thats what it was. Stupid crappy stock ignition. It failed on me like a month or two after I got the car. About mid summer I did the MSD coil swap and its been beautiful since.