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Poorly fitted HFC caused manifold to crack?


Daveymonkey

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I recently had a pair ARK Resonated HFCs fitted to my 350z (2005) along with a new Y-pipe by a reputable exhaust manufacturer. Upon leaving, everything seemed fine and sounded great. However, when I pulled off the motorway and the revs dropped as I went down the slip road, I heard a loud knocking under my feet. The same knocking occurred when going over rumble strips, or any unevenness in the road for that matter. At home, I took a look under the car and realised the driver side cat had been fitted such that the Helmholtz resonator was resting up against the chassis :scare:

 

I rang the garage who stated it could be a manufacturer defect as the cats were not made by them. However, they agreed to take a look at the car when I returned from holiday.

 

I'm now back and have gone out in the car again to check the symptoms are still there. When I hit motorway speed there was suddenly a distinctive "whooshing" sound immediately followed by the CEL light coming on. Having checked the code it was a P0420 "Catalyst System efficiency below threshold bank 1" which I understand is the driver side cat in question. Not sure if it's significant, but Torque app tells me that bank 1, O2 sensor 1 is 0.3 whereas bank 2, sensor 1 is double that at 0.6 at idle.

 

I also noticed that at v.low speeds, but when the engine is under load (e.g. uphill, sharp turn in carpark), a couple of times there was a distinctive rattling sound from under the bonnet. I also feel like I've lost some power compared to leaving the garage throughout the range, but I guess this is subjective.

 

My initial searches have got me worried that I could now have a cracked manifold, resulting from the knocking of the cat against the chassis :( . I'm going to take it back to the garage as soon as possible, but I wanted to put this out there in case anyone has experienced anything similar or has any other advice or ideas about what this could be?

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