Targa Miata
MIATA BUILD
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July 20, 2012 - Here's what the core of the cat looked like once I got it out.
That's a piece of broken ceramic core cat on the left. The round one is a metallic core cat, which is probably why it simply bent and banged up instead of shattering. It's a pretty compressed little unit, though - it's about 1.5" smaller in diameter than it was originally! It's just about small enough now to slip into the 2.5" pipe. I'm thinking it just kept on getting banged around inside the housing and eventually got smaller. Good failure mode I suppose, it didn't clog anything the way a ceramic one can.
The housing had an impact mark on the bottom. Not that bad compared to some of the other stuff under there and it probably pre-dated the skid plates, but the cat had taken a hit.
tags: exhaust, wiring, drivetrain, interchange