[roland2003]

Hi Guys, remmember the police and ministry of silly walks people have roadside checks where they pull in cars at random (noisy /old/ 'max powered' are more likely to get stopped) They check your emmisions there & then. If it fails they may well have a good look under to see if a cat is fitted too.
Best Regards Roland GTT

[robbo mcs]

Quote: Originally Posted by Richard Crofts (original)

In the Austalia it might be possible for a car to pass an emmisions test without a cat but in the UK there is no way that a modern cat requiring car can pass the stringent emmissions tests set by Europe unless it has a cat. The requirements are quite high on cars post 1992 build (don't forget the emmisisons levels required on pre 1992 cars are different) so unless the car runs anything other than normal fuel it won't pass.

Hi,

It is quite easy to find posts by people on the internet who "claim" to have passed UK MOT tests with no catalytic converter on modern cars. Obviously it is the internet, so you are not sure if it is true or being posted by some 12 year old

The catalytic converter does the vast majority of its work on the first 2-3 minutes of cold starts. Once the engine is at normal operating temperatures it does relatively little, so to me it is not completely implausible. However, I dont know how they do an MOT test, ie does the car have to start from cold?

Personally I think anyone who removes the cat on a road car is crazy and irresponsible The performance gains from removing the cat are only really achieved on the racetrack in a highly tuned car when the car is running much, much, much harder than can ever be achieved on an open public road.

One thing worth bearing in mind in this whole discussion is that the mini has a bad reputation for burning out / trashing catalytic converters on the racetrack, especially when tuned. Before I decatted my car I went through quite a few cats, including the high flow sport ones, each at a substantial cost. This is what may be prompting people to want to remove the cat, rather than pure performance gains

Cheers

Robbo

[Rakey]

ooh, what a can of worms I opened there hey

But good to see some people digging out the facts and some good discusions on the legality of it