2004 182 de cat question

[chris powell]

hi could anyone give me a bit of advice please?

1) is it worth fitting a de cat pipe to my car? it has a longlife s/s exhaust fitted to it already.

2)if yes what do i do about the lambada sensors ( i have one in front of the cat and and one after)

3)which de cat pipe would be a direct replacement fit for the cat (so i can easily refit it for mot time)


i have also got a itg panel filter in the standard air box and have a rs tuner and have remapped the ecu with

clio2/cb22/clio1828200-7804-f4r738-ron98-1110.cal from henk at fastchips.

i am really pleased with the mods I've done so far (I've done a few suspension mods as well) but now that its getting a bit more technical to get a few more horses i thought i would ask you guys for your advice!

thanks in advance for any help,suggestions or advice you can give me.:S

 

[hipwell]

Most decat pipes have a hole for the lbda so just swap it out
Of your cat.
Mine sounded absolutely crazy with decat pipe on so in the end I put the cat back on.

Pretty much all decat Pipes will fit unless you get an exhaust specific one such as the millteks and ktr ultra performance as they use a different connection.

 

[chris powell]

hi thanks for that hipwell

but if i just swap the lambada sensor over wont it sence that there is no cat in and bring the warning light up on the dash?

also what about a silenced decat pipe would that be any better?

ps what did you do with your decat pipe have you still got it?(for sale??)

 

[akaboogie]

i phone ktec the othe day about a silenced de-cat and thay said to me silenced cat would be better as a unsilenced cat will just some be too booomy but thay both do the same thing i think he said around 5-6bhp but i dont no...

but if you phone (longlife) thay will do you a de-cat and a straight thought middle section for £100. i was thinking about doing this my self.,

 

[Gouldy]

dont get anything longlife, i had a de cat from then once, it rusted to bits and fell off my car in 4 months

 

[akaboogie]

if i was you i would of took it back... as you get a guaranetee life time..

have to say i never had a problem tho..and for a £100 think it a deal mate..

 

[chris powell]

thanks for the input chaps

tho i must say the exhaust longlife built me is fantastic and the workmanship is brilliant!

there are different fitting centers tho but the one in caerphilly in wales is wicked good!!

i think i will give them a ring on Monday and see what they are saying

 

[stokie4ker]

hi thanks for that hipwell

but if i just swap the lambada sensor over wont it sence that there is no cat in and bring the warning light up on the dash?

also what about a silenced decat pipe would that be any better?

ps what did you do with your decat pipe have you still got it?(for sale??)

Have you considered having your cat modified to remove the built in restriction? That way your car will still be road legal and you won't have the hassle of changing the decat at MOT time

 

[Gouldy]

if i was you i would of took it back... as you get a guaranetee life time..

have to say i never had a problem tho..and for a £100 think it a deal mate..

take it back to get another one that they get the nominal bore wrong and for that to rust to bits again in 4 month? no thanks

ive seen loads of "custom" exhausts over the years fall to bits but the main ones i remember are;

1. a long life system that was a turbo back system rust to bits and look awful (bright orange under the car) in 6 months.

2. astra again, this time a mk3 shat its baffles out on the floor not long after purchase

3. an R32 mk4 golf system that rusted so bad in a few months it actually fell off the car.

there is no reason to go to a custom exhaust place unless you can not get an off the shelf exhaust system for your vehicle ie 20 V T mk 2 golf etc etc

 

[chris powell]

i dont understand when you say "rust to bits" because the longlife center i went to only uses stainless steel

and i didnt think stainless steel rusted?

have i missed something?

 

[Gouldy]

stainless steel still contains carbon, all be it low levels of the stuff but the carbon content in the stainless steel gradually causes it to still rust.

it also depends on what grade stainless is used, ie 304 grade (most common) or 316 grade. the higher the grade the better quality.

the main reason why custom exhausts rust to bits is either low grade stainless or the welds are metal inert gas (MIG) welded instead of tungsten inert gas welded (TIG).

the MIG welded stainless exhausts therefore rust at the welds even if good quality grade stainless is used causes the exhaust system to fall to bits.

also dont believe the hype about stainless being expensive, its £11 for a 3 meter straight length of 304 stainless. so a relatively cheap material.

 

[chris powell]

ah right i get it now!

at least mine was defo tig welded cause i watched them do it (well some of it anyway i got a bit bored after 3.5 hours)

I'm still going to stand by my exhaust tho (if it falls apart then i will have to come back on here and admit that i was wrong!!!)

thanks to gouldy for taking the time to explain stuff this site is a fantastic wealth of info from people in the know!!

 

[Gouldy]

ah right i get it now!

at least mine was defo tig welded cause i watched them do it (well some of it anyway i got a bit bored after 3.5 hours)

I'm still going to stand by my exhaust tho (if it falls apart then i will have to come back on here and admit that i was wrong!!!)

thanks to gouldy for taking the time to explain stuff this site is a fantastic wealth of info from people in the know!!

no worries mate, and when you watched the process; it looks exactly the same except tungsten wire is used instead of metal so you would need to ask them. MIG welding is cheaper than TIG welding so most places use MIG

 

[hipwell]

Yes your Emissions light will possibly come on, some do some don't. End of day it's only a light who gives a f**k.

 

[chris powell]

fair point!! ha ha

I'm sure i read somewhere on here about a diesel lambada giving out a perfect signal all the time or something

do you know anything about that?

 

[hipwell]

No idea. If a light bothers you that much buy a fault code reader off ebay for 20 quid to turn it off.

When I had my decat I just unplugged the lambda sensor and it was fine.

 

[Gouldy]

fair point!! ha ha

I'm sure i read somewhere on here about a diesel lambada giving out a perfect signal all the time or something

do you know anything about that?

That's probably because diesels only have one lambda sensor which is pre cat. Plus diesels don't need cats to pass the mot where as most petrols do.

I had a de catted gt tdi highline golf. Come mot time it sailed through on tue emmissions test.

The limi for the nox emissions is 3.0 and with a de catted exhaust on the test sheet it gave a 0.44.

Well below the maximum level. Remember diesels work completely different to petrol engines.

As for the secondary lambda on the clios I would just remove it from the exhaust and cable tie it out of the way somewhere in the engine bay.