ZERO

hey guys,


i've had a issue come up and i was hoping you might be able to steer me in the right direction with how to proceed from here.

as an fyi, i have:

2005 mustang GT - +/- 13,000 miles (i've owned the car since 11/09/05)
satin silver (not that it matters)
bassani xpipe exhuast w/ the comp cats<--- this is my only mod

anyhow, i was driving home at the end of last week and my check engine light game on all of a sudden.

i thought it might have been because i was a bit overdue for an oil change so that weekend i took my car to the dealer (i wouldn't have gone there for an oil change execpt the light was on, so i wanted to kill 2 birds with 1 stone).

anyhow, after waiting 2 hours, they service consultant came in and told me two things:

1. they were charging me $104.00 to check the check engine light

2. they don't know what was going on because i have an aftermarket exhaust/cats and it was sending the computer odd messages.

he also told me, "your exhaust is mis-firing" which really made me scratch my head. he said i had to take it back to where i had the exhaust installed to have them service it. i grudingly paid the $104.00 for them to diagnose the car (total rip-off btw), and went on my way.

btw, i've had the exhaust on my car for at least 7,000 miles or so.

so two days ago i took the car to the local AutoZone and had them run the diagnosis on the car as well (which by the way they did for free). this time the guy was able to give me a little more information and a printout of what the error was. anyhow, here it is:

TROUBLECODE OBDII (APLHA) P CODE

TROUBLESHOOTING P0430
The PCM has determined that the catalyst system efficency for bank 2 is below threshold for the curren engine operating condidtions. (Bank 1 identifes the location of cylinder #1, while bank 2 identifies the cylinders on the opposite bank)

i talked with 2005redGT about it and he said it could be running lean, causing the error message. he also mentioned that the bassani cats might have "blown out". he said it has already happened to his. (i've also heard about the cats blowing out from a few other people). i spoke with andre of custom performance tuning and he thinks the rear o2's might be picking up the hi-flo cats.

andre said the o2 sensors could be turned off with a tune, which is fine with me, but i was curious if that would affect when i go in for an emissions test. 2005redGT said his car passed emissions w/o them, so i wasn't sure.

has anyone heard of anything like this before? is this a problem that i should bring up with bassani? they have a disclaimer on their website saying their cats are not "street" legal, but if they did blow out, that seems like a defect of the product.

well that's about it. i still have the check engine light on, but the car runs fine and w/o issues. i am confused why the light would come on after i have had the exhaust for so long, if it is picking up the comp cats.

any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated. if you need any more information or specifics let me know.

thanks.

hawgman

Actually all sounds logical to me. Unfortunately for you, that is the response I would have expected out of the dealer. Why? Because Ford was able to read the codes and corrolated them to the aftermarket cats, and quit at that point. If the cats are "blown out" that could very well cause a lean condition. I would definitely take it up with Bassini. On road or off road should have no bearing on the warranty of the cat ( assuming that there is some type of defect warranty on it ).

ZERO

i'm 100% certain if it's blown out, i've just heard it's more common than it should be. i guess the only way to tell would be to take the cat(s) off and look, yeah? if it is true, that really sucks. the exhaust isn't even a year old.

i would hope bassani would replace the cat(s) if that is the case. i was hoping to get the exhaust and still be able to maintain an emsissions friendly car. i don't know if a tune would help that or not without the catalytic converters.

has anyone had their car tested for emissions with a non-stock exhaust? i.e. bassani. borla, etc...

hawgman

Well, passing the sniffer test doesn't guarentee that you will pass if they are strict about the visual.

ZERO

i would deffinatly leave the shell of the cats on, i have the off-road legs, but in case there is a visual...better to leave it as is. whether or not it has any guts or not.

so, is this the solution then:

1. get a tune to turn off the o2 sensor, making the light go away

2. just go on without cats and hope it passes emissions or call bassani and see if they know what is going on.

:scratch:

ZERO

k guys, here's an update.

about two weeks ago i was driving around an happened to look down and see that the light had turned off. i thought, "wow...that's cool", and i just kept driving as usual. however, later that day it came back on again. :scratch: ah well, i guess the old: hope it goes away on its own technique - didn't work.

so i continue driving and a couple days ago, off the light goes again. but now it's been off for 4 or 5 days.

it's really confusing. anyone have any ideas about what's going on?