[brucepick]

Yikes. Folks really got into it here. I had a thought on the original topic so here goes...

"Should I build a cat preheater??"

Put a grill block in front of the cat. At least on most FWD cars I've seen the cat is behind the radiator or the a/c condenser. Kill off some of the cooling air flow and it will warm up a lot quicker without a whole lot of re-engineering. I wouldn't kill off all the cooling airflow over the cat, based on discussions here that an overheated cat isn't a good idea.

As for the "Ditch your cat!!" crowd, I'm completely NOT with you. We got rid of a lot of stench and nasty pollution by using cat converters and I don't want that junk back.

I'm old enough to remember country roads and city streets smelling horrible, just from a few cars idling or passing by. Stand near where a few non-cat-converter motorcycles are idling and you'll smell the same thing. Stand near the old car idling before rolling down in a parade, or at a vintage car meet. Disgusting and unhealthful.

I can appreciate guys with PhD's in organic chemistry explaining why it's actually better for the environment to run without a cat converter. For about one hundredth of a second. How many PhD's here on this thread?? Coming from guys with a BS degree, I'll buy the logic for about 1 millionth of a second.