Catalytic Converter Question
Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 8:02 am
Brian,
This is my first post on your forum, and I also want to say my friends and I in Florida love your site!! I recently bought a used RX8 with 24000 miles on it. I have always liked the rotary engine, and I have tooled around with them in the past (my friend and I had Gen 2 RX7s) I also have a friend with a 99 Miata, love whipping that car around BTW. Anyways, we both are looking to get into some SCCA racing again, and we are starting to do some minor mods to my car.
I see allot of different exhaust options, cat back, race pipes, and full set ups like OBX sports. Its clear to me that most exhaust companies including racing beat would just assume get rid of the Converter completely and replace it with some sort of resonator or test pipe. Neither of these have any brick filtering inside to lower the emissions and will ultimately leave the check engine light on.
I will admit, on our old RX7s we both ended up losing the Cat because they would burn out or clog to easy, and the car made a little more power without it, coupled with twin dynomax mufflers out the back. I’m sure the same is true for the renesis, as it is just a revised version of that old NA 13b engine in the RX7. However, all the rule books for SCCA and other events like redline time attack, require a Cat and from what I can interpret, no check engine light on.
So my question is, do you or anyone you might know have a solution to this? Maybe a race Cat of sorts? I’ve heard people say they don’t work.
Do the SCCA rules allow the welding in of a Race Cat (like from Random Technologies) or are we just stuck with the stock, Big, Heavy, restrictive Cat that will
eventually clog and have to be replaced?
Your thoughts?
Scott
This is my first post on your forum, and I also want to say my friends and I in Florida love your site!! I recently bought a used RX8 with 24000 miles on it. I have always liked the rotary engine, and I have tooled around with them in the past (my friend and I had Gen 2 RX7s) I also have a friend with a 99 Miata, love whipping that car around BTW. Anyways, we both are looking to get into some SCCA racing again, and we are starting to do some minor mods to my car.
I see allot of different exhaust options, cat back, race pipes, and full set ups like OBX sports. Its clear to me that most exhaust companies including racing beat would just assume get rid of the Converter completely and replace it with some sort of resonator or test pipe. Neither of these have any brick filtering inside to lower the emissions and will ultimately leave the check engine light on.
I will admit, on our old RX7s we both ended up losing the Cat because they would burn out or clog to easy, and the car made a little more power without it, coupled with twin dynomax mufflers out the back. I’m sure the same is true for the renesis, as it is just a revised version of that old NA 13b engine in the RX7. However, all the rule books for SCCA and other events like redline time attack, require a Cat and from what I can interpret, no check engine light on.
So my question is, do you or anyone you might know have a solution to this? Maybe a race Cat of sorts? I’ve heard people say they don’t work.
Do the SCCA rules allow the welding in of a Race Cat (like from Random Technologies) or are we just stuck with the stock, Big, Heavy, restrictive Cat that will
eventually clog and have to be replaced?
Your thoughts?
Scott