Date:         Fri, 9 May 2003 15:28:18 EDT
Reply-To:     Oxroad@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Jeff Oxroad <Oxroad@AOL.COM>
Subject:      Re: just passed CA smog, but poor mileage
Comments: To: hradek@YAHOO.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

In a message dated 5/9/2003 8:54:39 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
hradek@YAHOO.COM writes:

<<  If your planning
 on satying in california I would save for a cat
 converter.   Which brings up a question I have.
 Has anyone in california bought one of those economy
 priced cat converters from busdepot?   Do they work
 well enough to keep your hydrocarbon levels low? >>

I bought what I guess you could call an economy cat at about $100 or $120
from BMA in Burbank, CA for my 83.5 Westy. Following the installation my bus
passed smog with no problem.

I'm looking for the paperwork to find the actual numbers and the brand of the
cat. The brand is a popular aftermarket company--I seem to remember the brand
starts with a "B" but it escapes me. And to the best of my knowledge it's the
same cat the Bus Depot sells.

I explored other cat avenues, but with the dealer cat going for over $350,
the aftermarket cat was the way to go. I see a lot of the aftermarket cats on
Vanagons out here. The installation is simple, although visually not quite as
beautiful as the OEM cat. The OEM cat tucks up a bit higher behind the skirt
than the aftermarket cat. But only me and about 12 other
obsessive-compulsives in the world would even notice this. The aftermarket
cat has an external heat sheild which me and listees ecided should go toward
the engine to keep excessive heat away fromt he water pump etc.

My 83 water-cooled, by the way, is not a california emissions vehicle, but
still has to meet the standards that a ca. emissions vehicle would have to
meet. Some of the cats, including mine I think, come through with a plug for
the O2 sensor. I guess some applications have the O2 sensor mounted in the
cat. My bus has the O2 sensor in one of the exhaust manifolds.

At any rate the cat has worked fine. I'll look for the paper work to see what
my hydrocarbons were and the manufacturer of the cat.

Beat,
Jeff
83.5 Westy
LA,CA