Hey guys. About a month ago the inside of my cat broke up and clogged up my exhaust. The exhaust shop I went to told me to get a universal cat because the direct fit would take more time and cost me more in labor so I ended up having the guy weld in a magnaflow universal cat.

Fast forward to two days ago, my check engine light came on saying the cat was bad. Looking at the cat from under the vehicle theres two areas where its clearly turning purple. Several people have told me recently that the direct fit is the way to go and the universals tend to go out like crazy, but is this actually true?

At this point I could buy another universal fit one and have it installed or pay extra to have the flanges put back in and a direct fit installed, but I would rather not do that if universals are just as good as the direct fits.

 

I doubt they removed the stock flanges when they installed the universal cat. They likely cut out the stock cat and welded in the replacement. You should be able to still put in a direct fit.

They flat out lied to you about the direct fit though. It wouldn't take half the time to install as the direct fit. They likely soaked you pretty good for the universal and wouldn't have made as much money from the direct fit.

As far as the life expectancy of a universal over a direct fit... That is somewhat subjective. Most of the time both have the same catalyst. The universal cats are cheaper because they do not include all of the piping & flanges. Neither should cause a CEL.

If the CEL is on, you should go back to the shop that did the work and have them fix it. A month should be within some kind of warranty period. My bet is they didn't use the proper universal cat for the application, but rather went cheap...

 

I didnt actally buy the cat from the shop that installed it. They just told me to get a uni fit with the same inlet and outlet diameter and itll work. The brand is magnaflow, I would've thought magnaflow would be of higher quality than a Walker cat.

 

Just because there are discolored areas doesn't mean that the cat is bad.

The code is likely for catalyst efficiency which is likely caused by an improperly sized cat. If your performance is still proper, the catalyst is probably working as well as it can, but just not up to OE specs. You can install a spark plug spacer on the rear most O2 sensor to see if that stops the trouble code.

 

The Thunderbolt cat I bought from Performance-Curve flows extremely well and was only $40, it'll be like $50 for one with an O2 sensor bung welded in but for that money it's worth it. I've had mine on my truck for over a year and it works like it did new.

 

I'd go with this, especially coming from someone with a knowledge base like Kyle's.

 

I took it to the exhaust shop yesterday, it was a bad cat. Turns out Advance Auto Parts gave me the wrong cat (that makes two they've given me that were wrong). I also have cat pieces in my muffler from the first one that went out so I'll be looking at mufflers soon. Flowmaster 50 series any good?

 

I like the FM 50 I have on mine.

 

re : Catalytic Converter

My friend owned the borla headerback, will the bosal catalytic converter could bolt on as well.

 

But both the vehicles in your signature are V8's, while the OP owns a little 4.3L V6. What works for your engines may not work for ours.