How can you tell if the cat\'s on it\'s last legs?

[Wombat-007]

Oh Dear, guess I had that one coming  :rolleyes:
Guess I should have been more more specific, the furry cat seems fine, but if it keeps attacking my feet at 2 am it may well get shaken too!
 
Thanks for the advice on both, will pull it off the car (RX7 Cat that is!!) and have a look. This could well be the problem as the air pump was disconnected when I bought the car (knackered so they took the fuse out) and have no idea how long it was like that.
Suppose this would cause un-burnt fuel to soak in the leading edge of the cat, and now I\'m running the air pump, maybe the cat has had enough (probably both types).
Thanks guys

[Nik da Greek]

Doesn\'t running a cat with the air pump not working knacker the cat through having it overheating all the time? I s\'pose that\'d accelerate all the little cell walls in the matrix breaking down, but wouldn\'t that make it less restrictive, rather than more?

[adib]

well i think my cats used its 9 lives up, when im on boost it gets really load as it exhaust has a big hole in it.
so i am going to cut it out tomorrow at work and see what happens

[Wombat-007]

Doesn\'t running a cat with the air pump not working knacker the cat through having it overheating all the time? I s\'pose that\'d accelerate all the little cell walls in the matrix breaking down, but wouldn\'t that make it less restrictive, rather than more?

Not sure, thought these things got bunged up without the air pump working. :confused:
Thinking of going de-cat and get the guy\'s at REWORX to spin it up on the dyno to check it\'s not running lean.
Guess the neighbours will have to put up with the loud exhaust until my racing beat arrives in april.

[pdtaylor18]

Think having a cat and no air pump working does shorten the life of the cat.
As others have said take it off and you may well be able to see whats going on inside. Poor performance is defo one offender but testing it at an MOT station will indicate if the HC content is way too high.  Higher temps due to blockage is serious and will kill your engine, so best play it safe and either go de-cat or get the cat checked.  With the airpump you only need to electrically disconnect the plug on the pump, make sure the fuse was pulled for no other reason as it could be an electrical fault and blew the fuse, so they just took it out.  Not sure if the pump has a dedicated fuse ?? might be worth seeing what else it covers to play safe.

[Wombat-007]

Thanks for the info. Pump was definately knackered, bearing was screaming when the fuse was put back in so this has been replaced with a second hand unit. Fuse was also for the air con pump too which also spins up ok too now.
Will get the cat removed asap over the next week or so and hopefully finally get the car running properly.