Damn, those blades were mangled. I have a lot of respect for Jap car engineers, but seriously, cats before the turbo?!:fawk:
The same shat happened to me but subaru replaced my turbo and upipe,They could not blame me for it since everything looked stock. But that was on my 04 wrx.
yah the more boost you run the hotter that cat gets then it starts to disintigrate and gets sucked up into your turbo.
i had that happen to have that happen but i was lucky the piece that went in mine was so big that all it did was stop the wheel with no damage i was in 0 boost when mine sucked up. i had a mbc that wa running 16 psi i knew it would happen sooner or later. i got a stock td04 at milos if you need a quick fix.
I don't see what US Emissions would have to do with this. It was Subarus fault for being overly concerned about their cars passing the Emissions, but at the same time, I have never heard of anyone failing because of a catless uppipe alone. Also the fact that the 06's have a catless Uppipe and also all STIs unless the 2.5 block helps with Emissions and that is the reason they decided not to have one in the STI and 06.
You won't fail a sniffer test if you yank that cat as it's there for cold start emissions and once the car's warmed up it doesn't really add any value. The requirements for car manufacturers are a little more comprehensive than taking it to the local emissions station and getting sniffed for twentyfive bucks though. As to why they did this, I doubt they just did it out of being 'overly concerned' -- certain % of vehicles sold must meet certain EPA requirements for car manufacturers, and I suspect the WRX was 'sacrificed' in order to sneak in under the requirements for the overall fleet... witness the closed/open loop delay which isn't present on the STi, but on the WRX (google EPA and enrichment delay). As to the 06 WRXs having no uppipe cat, beats me why; don't believe that it is due to the 2.5L engine as the Forester (and Legacy GT, right?) has an uppipe cat.
LGT's have a cat in the uppipe. It looks as though the 2007's are going to the smog pump (air pump that injects air at cold start to lower emissions).
I don't have time to dig into the EPA stuff, but I wonder if it's not that they managed to reclassify the WRX somehow and be allowed to get away with dropping the uppipe cat.
2 things.. I thought a well designed cat has almost no air restriction value...? and 2: i thought boost pressure means nothing without crossing it against air volume flowing?
1. Well designed does not equal inexpensive. Some nice aftermarket high flow cats provide less of a restriction but they cost a good bit more. 2. I agree with you more or less. However, spooling the turbo up depends on velocity and that is adversely affected... if you were to dyno a catless uppipe vs a catted one, you'd likely see a quicker spool but pretty much no real difference once the turbo's spooled up.