[My car is a 2006 Evo IX with 26K miles on it. Completely stock. NO MODS. No mechanical problems every. Just gas, oil, and tires.]

A couple of weeks ago, I let my dad drive my car to pick up his from the shop. It has probably been 6 months since he has driven mine. I was riding shotgun. Cruising in the fast, he goes WOT and a loud pop with sudden loss of power. Now we're pulled over on the side of GA400. We tried to start up the car again and it wouldn't rev above 2K. Occasionally it could get to 3-4K but it didn't like it. I thought maybe IC pipe blew off or maybe some kind of ignition problem. We were about 5 miles from the Mitsu dealer, so we just called AAA for a flatbed.

[Now, I realized I should have just looked more carefully under the hood while we were on the shoulder of the highway. The UICP blew off connecting at the throttle body.]

Dealer looked at it for a couple days and the manager told me officially "debris in the MAP sensor" and it was all fixed. My car was covered under warranty, so I didn't really care what the problem was as long as it was fixed. Didn't cost anything for me. I drive the car home and about 20 miles down the road, the CEL comes on. Drove right back to dealer, and he says it is a P0420 - Catalytic converter efficiency below threshold. Cleared it, says if it comes back on, we'll replace the cat.

...well the CEL came back on the next day. Autozone checked it and said the same P0420. Called the dealer, told him I wanted a replacement cat, and arranged an appointment to check the code for confirmation so they could order it. On the way over to the dealer today, the same loud pop and loss of power. Pulled over, popped the hood, and TA DA! UICP blew off at the TB. I fixed it with a screwdriver and tightened the clamp the best I could. Problem fixed, and continued on my way to the dealer. I spoke with the technician who worked on my car last time it was here. He said it wasn't a MAP sensor or anything like that. It was simply a UICP blown off at the exact same spot I described where it came off 5 minutes earlier. Hmm...was I just lied to by the manager? The technician ordered the cat, and I went home.

My questions:1.) Is there a connection to the UICP blowing off and my factory cat dying? 2.) And why on earth would the manager say something about a MAP sensor when it clearly wasn't the problem at all?

 

Nope no connection to the two.... Most likely they took it off and didnt tighten it back up...

Welcome to the world of the evo =-) You'll get wierd things here and there, no biggie..

The cat going bad is weird though, should just replace it with a testpipe.. Its good for some power =-)

Cheers!

 

well, to fix the upper IC pipe blowing off you should change to T-Bolt style clamps. but i cannot understand why they are blowing off at stock boost settings if all the factory clamps are tightned? the cat i have no idea, just got the bad ones in the bunch i guess? keep us updated when it gets figured out

 

I highly doubt there is a connection, but without having the IC pipe on the TB, your car was running extremely rich. So it could have caused some kind of malfunction, but it's not likely. I'd ask them to check your O2 sensor too. That could have gotten screwed up.

Do yourself a favor and ditch all of the stock worm clamps. Buy T-bolt clamps and you'll never blow a pipe off again. Trust me, you're finding out the hard way that it's well worth it.

Wow, it's good to hear a story every once in a while about Mitsubishi honoring warranty claims without a fight.

 

no connection, just use t-bolts on the upper pipe

 

no ive never heard of anything like that...no connection there

maybe the manager told you that because he wasnt fully informed about the car and the whole situation so he just started talking out of his ***. and if your MAP sensor was a problem the car would start but ive very very rough


btw dont worry your not the only one thats happened to. mine happened to me at 4am on the parkway coming home from work. took off from the toll hit 3rd gear and 21 psi op: UICP....wonderful i had no tools on me. had to wait for a screwdriver to be delivered. since then no problems

 

I AGREEEE!!!

 

Funny you mention that...

I'm ordering a Megan TBE with test pipe in a few weeks along with a MBC, and some other goodies. I wanted the dealer to replace my cat so I can just slap it on around emissions time.

 

I kept a ratchet in my car after the first time it happened, happened about 4-5 more times, then finally happened at a NASA event so I went and bought a T-bolt clamp from a shop that had set-up there, never had problems after. And BTW mine was stock boost too, it only did it after prolonged exposure to boost (ie freeway driving in 5th)

 

I had mine pop off of the TB while i was getting onto the freeway. Scared the hell out of me. Thought I had a major problem until I looked under the hood and saw that it had popped off. I did replace it with a t-bolt clamp.

 

I think it's a connection My first IX MR did the same thing and it was all stock as well. Was boosting up a hill on the freeway and POP, pulled over, poped the hood and found the UICP blown off at the TB. I happened with 6k on the clock and I didn't have any tools, ended up limping it home with the UICP pushed on

Next day it through a CEL for the cat or 10 miles later. Dealer did the same thing, cleared it and said if it comes back we will get you a new one. I sold it with 10.5k for 28k before the cat was ever replaced as at the time they said the cat was coming from japan so it would be awile.

Wish I could tell you if the new cat would fix the problem but it could be the O2 sensor (either 1) or some other sensor that gets ruined by the UICP blowing off.

 

^^^ Glad to know I wasn't the only one with this strange order of problems. It didn't make sense to me at first, but things do happen at random.

 

the 2 have nothing to do with each other
then agian who the hell knows i seen stranger things

 

Dont know what mods you have but if you want to keep your cat it should be covered under warrenty. If you are not covered just get a test pipe with a o2 fix adaptor for the o2 sensor after the cat

 

Coincidence? Maybe, but there were other people reporting the same thing when it happened to me.