I was just curious, do high flow cats have to be installed in one direction? or can they be swapped front to back?

 

Do they have an arrow that points one way? If not, I would think they are not unidirectional. All they are is a pipe with honeycomb substrate that reacts with the gases to catalize the unburnt fuel and lower emissions.

 

My guess would be if it is a recently made cat, it can only be installed in one direction. The reason why you can only install the cat in one direction is the coatings. In most cases the coating varies from one end of the cat to the other. This allows different chemical reactions to happen in a sequence. If you install a cat backwards, the effectiveness of the cat is dramatically reduced and you could risk permanently damaging the coatings. Check with the company who assembled your cat if it does not have a direction label.

 

HAHAHA....you sould like a commercial.

 

Sorry to threadjack but are all HFC created equally?? in terms of performance and internal quality?

 

no they are not. some use ceramic and others use a metalic substrate internally. the metalic cost more but usually last longer and out flow the ceramic
search...ultimate racing hfc, perrin hfc, helix hfc, random technology, etc

 

+1 for random tech

 

I contacted perrin about their high flow cat and they informed me that they can be flipped around. I have been running mine like that for about 1.5k miles.

 

I bought a used Random Tech hi-flo cat and I didn't even know if there was a correct direction for the install. And I've had it for at least 20K miles now... Zero problems.

 

I had an arrow on mine...

 

sorry for the slightly off topic, but If anyone wants to sell an OEM cat, I need one.

 

just get a downpipe. easy fix. haha