Xantia TD De-cat

drpau · Post by **drpau** » 28 Oct 2004, 21:40

Ive just had a quote for £130 including VAT and fitting, for a custom stainless steel front section (T304SS), does this sound like a good price?
Its certainly cheaper than the £176 with vat ive been quoted for a boggy standard front piece with CAT.
Cheers
Paul

ghostrider · Post by **ghostrider** » 29 Oct 2004, 03:41

I suspect that the front pipe is available off the shelf, my P reg 1.9td has a cat, my R reg 1.9td vsx does not (strange, the only explanation I can think of is that the R reg one sat around unregistered for ages). I think the back boxes are the same, on the non cat car the front pipe is one piece all the way from the engine to the back box. The heat shield for the cat is there so it must follow the same route. Both cars have ECUs but the non cat one does not have the throttle position sensor, how difficult it would be to remove all influence of the ecu as regards the cat I don't know, I would be interested to find out, the non cat car certainly feels quicker, haven't had it long enough to tell about economy yet
Pete
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MERCEDES-BENZ M111 ENGINE HISTORY

nick · Post by **nick** » 31 Oct 2004, 18:21

I was just checking under my Xantia this morning before its MOT next week, and discovered that the exhaust is blowing at the weld just behind the cat, and also at the one before the back box. Normally this wouldn't be a cause for celebration, but I've been looking for an excuse to ditch the cat for ages, so it quite cheered me up !
I rang round for a couple of quotes and the first question they asked was "Has it got a cat?" I said "Erm, yes, but I want rid of it." One place tried to talk me out of it "It won't possibly pass the MOT without the cat sir" I explained that on a diesel it makes no difference to the MOT whether it has a cat or not, and they grudgingly agreed to fit a non-cat full system for £144.

dnsey · Post by **dnsey** » 01 Nov 2004, 01:32

Don't bother getting the bit with the back box replaced, though, unless it's really bad.
Mine failed in the same place through rust / metal fatigue 2.5 years ago, and I fixed it with an internal sleeve and some epoxy leak sealing resin (it doesn't get very hot). Still fine!

nick · Post by **nick** » 01 Nov 2004, 02:16

To be honest the back box is pretty bad, the tailpipe all but disintegrated last year and I hacksawed most of it off to leave just a short stub of reasonably sound metal sticking out, to make it look a bit more "respectable" for the last MOT. This has now rusted quite badly and it won't be long before there is no tailpipe at all !
The weld on the cat I probably could fix with a mig welder, but I would like to see what effect removing the cat has. I thought about taking it off before, but decided I would leave it on for as long as it stayed fairly sound & working ok.

nick · Post by **nick** » 01 Nov 2004, 22:28

I had the exhaust replaced today (they couldn't do it at the weekend because they had to order the parts), and its amazing the difference its made. The engine feels to be running better than it ever has done before in the 4 years I've owned the car.
It has made me wonder if the cat in the old system could have been partially blocked? I'll be interested to see what difference it makes to fuel consumption.