Alfa Pages

[Paul Lewis]

Hi all. My silver M reg 16 Valve has been very reliable since I bought it back in July 2003 to replace my pranged P4..but now with immaculate timing just before xmas, the rear box and cat have decided to die!! Basically the joint between the backbox and the centre section (cat) has totally corroded and my local garage think it is beyond a cut and weld job. According to Alfashop, you can only get a repair section for the 8 valve anyway and the 16 valve is a larger bore size. The garage who are not Alfa specialists reckon it would be too much of a bodge job to try and repair the joint.

Therefore that means a new cat which is gonna be expensive and a new rear box! The car is also running a bit rough at the moment (it can stutter under acceleration) and they reckon that it is because the system is blowing and it is sucking in air under acceleration and confusing the lambda sensor?? Is this right?

Does anyone know of non alfa (aftermarket) cats that are available or even sports cats for the 16 valve as I don't want to spend hundreds on just a bog standard system. My car was first registered in August 1994 so it would be illegal to remove the cat. Also could I put on a sport back box with a replacement cat centre box? Anyone got any advice or a decent s/h cat?

Cheers Paul.
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Currently own a late 33 16 Valve (M reg) in Silver, with P4 alloys and superspint back box.
I live out in the sticks with not an Alfa specialist for miles around!!

[Marcin]

Hi,

I had a similar problem few months ago and considering the price of a new cat (a couple of hunderds of euros) I got myself a complete exhaust system from the scrapyard for 100 euros. As my Alfa has 210000km on the clock and the donor Alfa only 120000 it definetly was an improvement.

Works very fine.

Marcin

[manit]

Hi,

I had a similar problem.

I managed to get a specialist exhaust system shop to make me up the last 18 inches or so of the cat pipe in stainless steel with flare etc for 20 quid, then cut and shut with clamps.

It works fine and has gone thru 2 MOTs since.

I did have to hunt around though, and no normal exhaust places had the pipe bending equipment or the gumption.

If your cat is realy grotty up to the box, my only sugestion would be perhaps to fit a standard non-cat mid and back box. I am probably completely wrong but i think the so called 'cat test' is more about the lambda probe kicking in and dropping the emissions. I would be interested to know if this is true?? Most Mot centres don't understand Alfas, and so probably wont look very hard at the system itself.

John
'93 16v