Hi all,

Just wanted to share my experience on here, considering I did not find a concrete answer through the archives on this model year. This is how I fixed my roommate's issues with his 140k 2002 Civic EX with a D17A2. Sometimes it'd run great, other times loss of power, and the rest it would misfire and not work at all.

He randomly stalled on the interstate at 90mph and had to be towed home. The car would KINDA run after 30 minutes of cooling but would not go above 20mph like it was in limp mode. I suspected jumped timing but that was yet to be confirmed. I drove the car way later that night after the tow and it was fine? I figured jumped timing would screw up 24/7, so I ruled that out. A day or two later the car worked...? When cold it SEEMED fine, a little loss of power but idled fine---but warm and floored it would not go above 4k RPM and would not accelerate. It threw P0341 and P0340 at this point. Decided to check timing, and replaced the camshaft sensor, spark plugs, and VTEC gaskets while it was apart since we had them on hand. Timing was fine when we checked. He drove the car 3-4 more times and it got progressively worse until it wouldn't go above 30mph hot or cold. Parked and called it a day. Maybe it had more than one issue at this point? Didn't know.

I figured it was a clogged converter at this point, but we had no P0420 or any other weird codes. Our latest code reading after the rough running/super power loss were the codes P0300-P0304. Took the cat out on a whim and found the attached pictures :O The catalyst was melted into several pieces and broke apart. The chunks on the concrete were just from me shaking the pipe on the ground. It was very apparent the catalyst had melted and messed us up pretty bad... We gutted the cat and had no more issues. The Civic is 100% again.

Power is back 100%, no sputtering or stalling either. No other issues as of yet. I can fully expect the P0420 to appear, though. We'll see.

TL;DR: Car ran like crap and stalled. Clogged cat, gutted, 100% back to normal. FL = no emissions or inspection so zero F's given.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post this.
I wonder why no P0420 code then? I would think the O2 sensors would indicate that the cat would be below efficiency for sure.

 

Now, when you say "gutted" do you mean removed, cleaned, and reinstalled? (with the same cat)

OR

Do you mean removed and replaced with a new cat?

I only ask this because I had cat issues too and ended up replacing my cat with a new one. Just curious if I could have saved myself some money by just cleaning it and what the potential risks of damaging the car would be...

 

Yeah, like attacked the inside with a crowbar and a long screwdriver type of gutting to remove the entire element. Half of the catalyst was melted solid and was rattling around . My roommate is extremely poor and the cheapest replacement we saw locally was 330 bucks. This got him back on the road at least. This is not a viable solution in a state with emissions or inspection, though. As far as I know you can't really clean a cat to restore it to working condition, you can only really remove the substrate. You're also stuck with a permanent check engine light with this method.

I now keep an eye over my shoulder for Captain Planet.

 

aah ok. I thought so, that's a bit pricey for a used cat though. I had one installed for 160 (part and labor) It was a magnaflow, at least that's what the guy said... :

For real. Keep pollution down to zero whenever possible. If we all do our part, maybe we can turn this planet green again...

otherwise...

Earth!
Fire!
Wind!
Water!
Heart!

 

Still no P0420 at this point. We did get the oxygen sensor code, though, p0141 or something. He did drive around with an alternator running at 18 volts for a few days, so I wonder if that messed with the ECU a little bit to cause the no p0420 thing. Car is still running at 100%.

I wish we did have the money for the new cat. I know this world needs all the help it can get. I did replace a cracked header in my fiancee's 96 Civic which had a p0420 and a rattling cat. Came with the new cat and everything. Then again, she makes 3x more than my friend and could afford a proper fix.