Twood

I need to move my fuel sender for the same reason - the strut brace. You did'nt happen to make two of the brackets did you?

Babalouie

I made three, but it would be no trouble to knock up a fourth PM me with your address details.

Babalouie

Here you go!

f3nr15

Wow, that sounds angry.

Me likey

I'm still puzzled as to why the DesignTek cat was such a different fitment to the stock one.

But it sure does growl nicely...

Babalouie

The cat itself is German and looks to be a good one, but it's otherwise quite poorly made.

It's half the price of say, the Fabspeed cat tho, so if you are willing to accept that it isn't a plug and play proposition, then it's not a bad deal if you can DIY your way around it's shortcomings

Twood

Wait until you hear it when accelerating onto the freeway at 6000rpm in 2nd gear with concrete walls on both sides of you - childish pleasure

Babalouie

In tonight's episode of OCD With Heat Shields, I decided to re-do the aluminium shield I'd made up before. I thought it looked a little goofy since it was twice as big as the actual cat itself, and in terms of function, was pushed too close to the rocker cover shroud for my liking, due to the brackets on the cat.


So I figured that it was as good a time as any to experiment with this stuff. It's an insulating material made by aussie component suppliers ACL, and I first noticed it appearing on Ford oem turbo applications a few years ago, but now they sell sheets of the stuff to the aftermarket.


It looks like a two layers of thin ally, and initially I thought that maybe there was a sandwich of fibreglass insulation or something inside, but it seems that it's hollow, and relies on an air gap in the middle of the sandwich to do the insulating.


So...passing the point known as the One Of No Return, I start to dremel off the offending brackets off the cat.


Then make a cardboard template of what I want to make...


...not forgetting the brackets...the heatshield material isn't cheap at $70 for a 70x30cm sheet, so I figured I didn't want to have too many goes at making this


The brackets are cut from very thin 0.5mm aluminium, which is quite weak and floppy but the brackets will have a few folds in them for strength.


Now, to cut out the heatshield material, which cuts very easily with tin snips, and the waffle/grid pattern makes it very easy to cut it straight, too


Fold up on the vice...


Rivet on the brackets




And it's done!


It's much more compact than the stock cat and shield. In terms of weight, the old cat was 6kg, and the new one is 3kg.


The original version probably worked just fine, but this version is nicer


And there's now quite a big air gap between the cat shield and the rocker cover shroud


All done!

Marc Shaw

Very nice.

Marc

JohnMetro

Babalouie, you are my new hero. I have been away from the forum for a while, and only just came back. Shame, I would have loved to join the strut brace group buy...

I have bookmarked this thread and will be coming back regularly.

PS. I'm in Alexandria but I also have Autohaus look after mine

AB-Oz

nice pix and write up again mate, thanks.

ozmatt964

Kev, Thanks for the strut brace and the installation, very professional - thanks. IMO it has made a huge difference to the C4's handling and in particular I don't notice my 4WD light come on now as much when I hit random pot holes on our beautiful Sydney roads. It was a great mod and thanks.

BTW, I'm still trying to work out who or how you are holding the camera in some of these shots where we can see both your hands. Is there an assistant we should know of or have you made a camera tripod as well!

Babalouie

Nice to meet you yesterday!

My assistant is Mr Tripod. He isn't very helpful, apart from holding the camera though My setup in the garage is that the camera is always on the tripod, and I grab the tripod instead of the camera, so if my hands are dirty, the camera stays clean (the tripod is pretty mucky, tho)

jody stowitts

Babalouie: Do you know what the two 1 and a half inch(ish) nipples are that are on each cat (old and new, in the photo of them side by side on the bench) that are almost in the same cross sectional plane as the O2 sensor but rotated over about 90 degrees? Mr. curious. Cheers.

Babalouie

Not 100% sure what that does, but I have seen similar things on other cars. In Japan for example, domestic cars have a port coming off the cat, going to a temperature sensor. If the cat overheats, it triggers a CEL.

I guess it's possible that feature is there for some markets, where it's a requirement.

Jacke2c

It was used by porsche for a probe when diagnosing o2 and upstream temp when in their shops. Rarely used if at all anymore.