Forgot to mention, if you are worried about heat and fiberglass with its proximal location to the engine......there is always ceramic muffler pack that will eliminate your worries

 

Anybody know if our cats have stainless or mild steel housings?

 

Never mind. Stainless.


greverrr;
(Forgot to mention, if you are worried about heat and fiberglass with its proximal location to the engine......there is always ceramic muffler pack that will eliminate your worries.)


Excellent suggestion. I feel it will help take the edge off so I am moving forward and dismantling now. Will take photo's of mini glass-pac construction, should probably do a sound clip also.

 

The cat is back. Suspected I had a partially block convertor and it was confirmed. 3/4" Sq piece of foam wraps around the catalyst bricks to help seal off. Front side of the 400 cell brick had fallen down in front thus my partial blockage. How anything flows thru them converters is beyond me. So I gutted mine fabricated a 2" tube perforated tune with 3/16" holes packed it full of ceramic muffler packing and welded it all back together. The kitty has flow now. A homemade set of mini cherry bombs/glass pacs. The car now pulls like a freight train. Sound was a wee bit raw for me so I reinstalled fuse 19 and I could not be happier. It now has the nicest rumble/grumble on de acceleration. The exhaust tone is sweet and above 4000 rpms it is a full on symphony.

 

Nice!! That worked out nice

 

Any CEL yet? Patiently waiting on a video or sound clips

 

SO my exhaust note after a day or so indicated surely I must have a leak. Sure enough one of my cats which seemed tight when installed was not. The bolts had bottomed out on the rusty stud threads and did not secure the cat properly. So I added a few washers and she's tight now. This however now has my Kitty now much more quite than it was factory when idling and low rpm. The glorious rumble grumble on deceleration is now gone. I removed fuse 19 but this had no effect. The car is sounding much more Jaguar like. When getting into the throttle the exhaust note comes alive as before louder than stock but is now sounding much more exotic like. Much more aggressive than stock and yet very refined. Have not cleared codes but will do so today to see which ones return. I feared my modified cats were going to be too loud for me, however just the opposite, my mini cherry bombs killed my idle exhaust note but vastly improved it when getting into the throttle. Will advise which codes are still present. So all in all it seemed to work out total cost under $50.00 in parts and tools. However I must get the rumble grumble back on deceleration, the sound was just as intoxicating as acceleration. So I guess the tinkering continues.

 

I have been wanting to do this to my XK. I really want to do if for the sound alone.


I don't drive my car very often, but I have wanted it louder at idle and around town.


Does anyone have any info on the CEL reprogram to delete the CAT error codes? Do I have to get a full tune to do that?

Thanks,
Joe