Quote:
Originally Posted by nikitopo
A friend here was caught without cat and he had big trouble. It was not in the TÜV test, but on an ordinary check by police. Yes the situation is really bad.
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It sounds like he didn't just remove the cat, but put in another header. Otherwise, how would they have noticed at an ordinary police check?
Hypothetically, if someone at an undisclosed location in Europe, was to remove the cat from inside the stock header with a hammer and chisel, leaving the header looking completely stock on the outside - how would anyone ever notice?
Also, when the engine is warm the emission would be okay and shouldn't pose a problem with TÜV. The only thing is "P0420 cat efficiency below threshold" error code.
Said person would, of course, have to look into how long it is possible to drive the car without getting a CEL (i.e. to TÜV), or how visible an O2 spacer is looking down on the header in the engine compartment. Or said person would need to acquire a spare header and replace it every 2 years when the car needs TÜV.
If said person was indeed (unlikely) caught, he could always claim to have no knowledge about the whereabouts of the cat. Who is going to prove exactly who removed the cat? Maybe it was the previous owner? Maybe they forget to install it at the factory? Maybe it blew to pieces and flew out the exhaust pipe? Of course, it is more plausible to make such claims without an O2 spacer. So if someone was to endeavor into to such reckless crimes it might be the best option to have 2 headers and deactivate P0420 when driving the modified one.
Besides from a (let's face it) rather negligible power gain (in the big scale of things), another purpose of removing the header would be to reduce heat in the engine compartment.