Catalyst Monitor and Drive Cycles

[hancock1701]

So my car finally set the Catalyst monitor to Ready/Complete. All the other ones have set a long time ago, even O2 and HO2.

I was reading about drive cycles, and found a couple for 996 and 993. I figured this car might just use the same cycle. So I loosely followed that cycle, but the two things I did different than before were: I let the car idle for a few minutes before driving it, and I tried to cruise at 55 mph on the freeway (which was scary because even though I was in the right most lane, people were still coming up to me pretty fast, then changed lane to pass.

Just want to share my experience for those who want to get their car smog ready fast.

[Jamesp]

Here is a nice write up on catalytic converters.

The Misleading Nature of the PO42O Code - Eastern Manufacturing

There is no direct measurement of the catalytic converter health, instead it is a diagnotsic run by your car's computer. As this article shows, there may be several factors contributing to setting this code.

[rexcramer]

Excellent article on cat's. I had to read it twice. Thank you Jamesp.