no. of converters MT/AT, Europe, USA

[TRI]

I've seen a different no. of converters in different Insights. My Europe MT 00 has a thin pipe after the exhaust mainfold. The long (!) catalytic converter is about 3 feet away under the car. It doesn't have the exhaust/converter right after the mainfold my friend's 06 CVT imported from the US has.

Here's a picture of mine.

[gilbertguy]

Interesting...... sure enough my 2000 has a big CAT right where your straigh pipe is? I find it funny that there is an O2 senser right in the center of the pipe still.

[TRI]

where are your o2-sensors located?

[retepsnikrep]

The US has more cats as they have a tougher emnission standard to qualifiy for the various tax levels I believe. We only have two O2 sensors on genuine European manual cars. Can't remember about hapanese CVT's but they probabbly only have two sensors as well and are missing that CAT on the downpipe like the manual cars.

[Eli]

The first O2 sensor will be present on all cars no matter how many catalytic converters they have; it's the Air/Fuel Ratio feedback sensor.

[TRI]

Is the second cats on the US cars identical to the one on the EU cars?

[retepsnikrep]

If you mean the one under the car then yes I think so.

[02insight]

I wonder if its better for performance or mpg to have a straight pipe like that. We in USA can always try it, and just put a O2 sensor fooler for the 2nd sensor so it doesnt throw a code...