This is my first post on this forum, but I’ve been meaning to register for a while.

After driving my car around and turning it off, the exhaust produces metallic clicks and pops as it cools down, like every other car I’ve owned. However, lately I’ve noticed that it’s doing it a bit excessively. If I hop out of my car while it’s idling after a drive, I’ll notice the exhaust making the noise as it cools down with the engine running, which caught my attention as strange.

If I go for a drive without accelerating even moderately, it’s reduced but still there. I took a look under the car to try and hear exactly where it was coming from, and unsurprisingly, from what I could tell, it was just after the catalytic converter all the way almost to the muffler.

If this meant the catalytic converter was overheating, it would be an indicator I am running rich correct? I also understand the evo x has a mild form of anti lag which retards timing and adjusts the mixture to reduce lag going into the next gear, which I would assume heats the catalytic converter quite dramatically.

I was just checking to see if this was normal and if you had experienced it as well (assuming you have a stock exhaust like me), and why you think it has started to get hotter recently. My car is completely stock (aside from an AEM cylindrical filter I put on to replace my dirty oem one, and the noise started well before I replaced the filter). Thanks for reading this long post!