Cat Restriction??

[Hoefler]

I changed my oil this weekend and noticed that the down pipe from the turbo to the cat was a dark bronze color. While from the center of the cat to the tailpipe was still silver in color. It appears to me that there is excessive heat forward and possible restriction in the cat. Has anyone seen this??

 

[RaymondSmith]

Yes, mine is the same. My color is a dark blue to bronze. I think that cat gets pretty warm under load. I have this steep hill that I climb on the way to my house. When I'm towing my 7500 pound boat I crest that hill at 45 MPH wide open. The other day I made a stop at a store at the top of the hill so my wife could run in and get something. When she got out of the truck she complained that there was soo much heat coming out from under the truck it was burning her legs. I walked over to check it out and sure enough, it was real hot.



As long as it keeps running strong I'm not going to worry too much about it.



Ray

 

[dhill]

The cat on my '94 PS and the one on my '97 CTD ran cool. I think I was told by the dealer that it was supposed to run about 350f at operating temp. I do know that when I idled around in the hills hunting, that when I got out and tested to see how hot it was, I could put my hand on it. It would be a bad idea to do that on a gas engine.



I don't know how hot the '05 is supposed to run though.



I know guys that race mustangs and they leave the cat on and functional, and claim that it doesn't restrict them.



Dave