Has anyone had their Catalytic Converter go out as a result of adding a greddy turbo?

I have a 1990 Miata with 44,000 miles on it. The base greddy kit has been on my car for about 4000 miles and all of a sudden it seems the Catalytic converter is bad (when you shake the converter it sounds like sand, when I rev the engine it rattles) I thought it was a heat shield on the exhaust at first but it appears to be the converter.

 

too rich.....

 

Your car is almost 20 years old dude. Stuff breaks.
You didn't want a cat on there anyway, did you?

 

Exactly they do seem to wear out over time. If it really gets bad it will sound like a vtec crossover at around 4k and bark backfire out of the intake.

Either replace it or break all the honeycomb out with a pickaxe or awl. Wear a respirator mask when you do because there are some nasty metals in a cat.

 

I am not complaining, I just wanted to know if the converter going bad was related to the turbo? The car is in otherwise like new condition.

 

Overly rich condition + more flow could = bad cat

 

Pretty much what the others said. Get an air fuel meter and see if you are running rich or alternatively take it to a shop with a dyno and get a reading off their wideband. Running rich for a while could cause the cat to go bad.

I'm at 192k on my 90 on the stock cat non boosted (haven't hooked up the kit yet). Just passed emissions a few days ago.

 

Does the car feel sluggish or anything? you might want to get that looked at/changed/or hollowed.

 

Or cut it off and bolt up a replacement from ebay for less than $50 including clamps. Phillip did that for a big truck, i'm sure you could get away with a cheap solution like that for awhile.

 

BEGi had a small score of $50 high flow cats on their website earlier this week.

 

Don't even bother with it if your area doesn't have emissions.

Besides the obvious, another plus to getting rid of it is the pop-pop-pop sound on deceleration like rally cars make

 

gotta love that fuel brunign in the exhaust, +1 it will make flame throwers easier

 

Had to replace my cat a couple of weeks ago. I was going to hollow it out but it had already been replaced once and was welded from the down pipe to the tip. I don't know how long the turbo has been on, I bought the car with it already installed.

 

Thanks for the info

 

Are you talking to me? My car runs fine. Where did I indicate otherwise?

 

Would be a symptom of a bad cat?

 

What? Are you asking a question? What are you talking about?

 

lol
making a statement.

 

 

Sluggish, won't rev above 4000, if turbo installed no boost.