Hey guys,

A few years ago I installed an LCE EGR delete kit on my 22re. At that point I really did not know if my EGR was working properly or not, but I installed the kit to clean up the engine bay and to check out how it worked.

Overall the performance has been fine. Power, mileage, are pretty much unaffected.

Late last year my cat converter, which was 5+ years old, died via the media breaking up. I replaced it with an Eastern Catalytic unit and now after only a few thousand miles of driving it seems to be suffering the same fate. My theory is that the lack of EGR is allowing the exhaust gases to be much hotter than normal.

Other ideas would be faulty injectors or upstream exhaust leaks. All of that seems to be in good shape. The engine runs quite strong and (apparently) clean.

I'm curious to know if anyone else here has experienced dead cats after installing an EGR delete kit. I would like to gather some opinions and ideas before I attempt to get my old EGR system working and installed again.

 

I suppose it's possible the EGR delete killed your CAT. They say the delete will end up with hotter exhaust, but how much I don't know. I do know that aftermarket CATs are crap compared to an OEM unit, but they also have MUCH different flow rates. I paid a good amount for my Magnaflow CAT, I wonder how many years I'll get out of that - I still have my EGR hooked up, but I doubt it will last 200k like the stock one did that's for sure!

BTW do you just swap parts every 2 years for smog testing? I'd think an EGR delete would be an automatic fail from visual inspection. Every smog shop I've gone to in the last 10 years, the techs seem to be doing a very thorough job compared to the past.

 

Well this truck actually still lives in GA and it past its 25 year cutoff mark for emissions. Although it still passed the sniffer when the EGR was removed.

Eastern Catalytic seems to have a good reputation, but I really don't know much about cat lifespans.

 

I don't think the EGR would kill the convertor. However raw fuel or oil burning off in the exhaust stroke can definitely shorten a cats life.

 

Adjusted the valves this afternoon -- just needed a tweak here and there, nothing odd.



I also swapped out the plugs. The old ones look like they are running hot, right?

 

I have a lcd delete kit as well. I don't have a thousand miles on it yet but I like the kit. Super simple. I deleted my cat so I can not say if it would mess up a cat. That being said the cat is there to burn extra fuel and other substances that would go into the air other wise. If the egr was in place it would just circulate a portion of the exhaust back threw the motor not all of the exhaust. If there where a issue then it would still kill the cat.

From the look of your plugs the front and rear plug look like there is oil on them. That would kill a cat it will plug it and then it won't get as hot and can not do its proper job. I would assume that if it is burning oil you would have some blue tint in the exhaust at fire up or under heavy throttle. It maybe hard for you to see while driving.

I would put new plugs in and drive a few hundred miles and re check the plugs, compare to the current plugs.

 

Yes I noticed the deposits on plug 1 and 4. Those look like oil to you?

I like your idea of pulling them after a short while to check if they are getting the same deposits now or not.

I also realized that my O2 sensor is getting up there in years. I might try swapping that out too.

 

O2 could cause a rich condition this is true, a vacuum leak could cause a rich condition as well. A old school way to check for vacuum leaks are to take a can of carb cleaner and spray the top of the motor with it while the truck is running. If you have a leak you will hear the truck accelerate or bog.

Another thought you.may not want to replace the O2 if you have bad ring sealing. It will oil foul the new O2.

 

Your plugs look like you might be getting a little preignition which could be caused by deposits on the electrodes or by your ignition timing being advanced too far. Check your timing if you have a gun just to rule that out. If it's due to crud on the electrodes, you should notice a difference in performance with the new plugs. I do think you are putting too much heat down to the Cat based on the manner in which the cat failed and the look of those plugs.

For what it's worth, my egr has been gone for a year and I am seeing no such issues nor do I think that any temperature variation caused by the delete would cause a cat failure due to overheating alone.

 

Also deleted my EGR, no problems for 3 years.