I was coming home today and I had decided to hook up my scanner to check on stuff. I noticed my cat temp. was around 700*. At first, I did’nt think anything about it till I got home and noticed there was smoke coming from the cat’s flange. Did this thing get too hot?! The car is a 3.1 V6 Camaro. The cat is factory and has been on for 18 YEARS! I have had the car for 15 years. I have no power at all for the last few months or so. I thought it might be smoke from inside the motor. But I can’t see smoke making it’s way from the engine all the way down the Y-pipes and into the cat just to come outta the flange. The car off and not running so I don’t think the smoke was coming from the motor. Whattya think? New cat time?
It could be a partially restricted cat. The vehicle has the OBDI engine mangement system. So it doesn’t monitor the cat efficiency to turn a check engine light on.
Before replacing the cat, have an exhaust back-pressure test performed. This will confirm if the cat is partially restricted.
Tester
I’m assuming this is 700?F and not 700?C (almost 1300?F)??
That’s actually about a normal temperature for a hot catalytic converter. Does it still have the heat shields in place? Perhaps something near the converter is getting a little bit cooked.