Oh, hiya Alex - decided to join up anyway I see.

I'm going to go halfway and look for the pipe conversion from powerflow. beyond that I'm not doing any hacking at an expensive bit of my exhaust - sorry mate.

We'll see what can be done for around

Jason, where does your mechanic mate work?

Just so i know which garages to avoid next time i'm down your way

It's not a big garage - A local garage for local people you could say - But there's no chance in hell I'm naming it. It's not a Skoda main dealer in case you're worried.

Anyway - This little thingy we were discussing was NOT to be associated in the slightest with where he is employed. It was a thing that would have been done on private time, and obviously is not a thing approved by his boss as a thing his garage should do, I very much doubt it at least!

I have been considering the pro's and con's of de-cat on diesels and have come to the conclusion from post on other forums that it really is a waste of money. On the pd diesel, you are apparently looking at a measly 1-2bhp gain! Think I will save my doe for some other worthy mods.............

Coilovers!

Just my 4 half pennies worth.

Not idiotic- just based on experience. Seeing as I have been playing with cars since I could hold a spanner Im not scared of trying out new things. After all If no one ever tryed these things no one would know if it was possible. Fear not I'm here to pioneer for us all! A de-cat pipe is a better option if you dont mind shelling out for it... Personally I'd pocket the cash and tell anyone who bought the car and complained to politley get stuffed. SOLD AS SEEN! P.s.The moral of the story is NEVER buy a car of a mechanic. Does anyone know what an EGR valve does? I bet if you did you'd be out with a torch trying to disable it!!

Well as EGR stands for Exhaust Gas Recirculation, I think its kind of self explanatory!

Oops, was that one meant for the non-tech peeps! Sorry. :p

Personally I'd pocket the cash and tell anyone who bought the car and complained to politley get stuffed. SOLD AS SEEN! P.s.The moral of the story is NEVER buy a car of a mechanic.

Ask your mate Jason if he thinks i'd accept that as an answer

So does removing a cat (and providing low down back pressure) actually gain you anything?

I think not.

Don't batter your cat - there is no point.

you may feel that it's "free-er" flowing - which it is - but your car won't be any faster as you have lost torque (which lets face it - is why you bought a tdi...)

Mark

Hehe - I'll tell Alex about you Geoff, next time I'm out at the pub with him.

If decat really is as bad a upgrade with not such favourable results, then I may leave as is.

Seems to work with petrol bettar than TDi. I'm gonna leave mine and just change the back box instead!

Leave the cat a alone I reckon.

If you change the whole system then bin it, but removing the cat alone wont give you much more power (from talking to people on tdiclub)

Changing the whole exhaust for a more free flowing system should give you a bit more power and faster turbo spool up. You can also do without the rear silencer and just have a straight pipe. See "mufflerectomy" here

I reckon you'll end up with a downright sexy big-rig burble effect!

In the former colony, that would be illegal (if you unlucky enough to be found out) and you probably would not pass the emission tests. In the older test you might have squeeked by but with the computerized motors and controls our tests "read" the engine's emissions "history" via the On Board Diagnostic (OBD) connector. I think the computer would know the cat is missing or assume it is defective. Either way, you would have to replace it to pass the test.

My question is why would you remove it? The old ones were pretty restrictive but the new ones should be designed for pretty free flow of exhaust. Also, the engine is probably designed to run with a known amount of back pressure in the exhaust and the engineers would have accounted for some of it in the cat.

The cats also remove a lot of the nasty stuff from the exhaust. OK, OK...they also pump out a lot of CO2 (a harmless gas!!!) that contributes to global warming. On the whole they do a pretty good job so why take it out???

:borg:

The "De-cat with a hammer" was just a bit of typical pub bullsh1t by someone who really should have known better. Like many "experts" he was talking out of his ****.