How well do Berk metallic HFCs hold up to heavy DE/track use?

 

Are you turbo'd?

 

NA tuned currently. Will be supercharged in the near future.

turbo8765 can be misleading but goes waaaay back to my DSM days

 

I wouldn't use a cat with FI on track. Likely will toast the honeycomb with the heat and fuel.

 

So NA will be fine? I've heard of cats getting shot out the back after overheating

 

I didn't say that. I said that FI was a particularly bad idea.

 

All cats will eventually fail with track use.

 

I could run the hfc on the street and remove it for track days but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.

At this point, I struggle to see the point of an inexpensive HFC.

They seem to wear out on the street after a couple years normal usage.

Also, I'm not sure how much they actually reduce HC emissions. There's a thread with an hfc emissions test and the HCs are in 14x with the hfc. The pass/fail cutoff is 5x. The HCs on the same car were <10 with a stock cat. I wonder what the HCs would've measured with a TP? I also wonder at what level HC emissions become detectable by the average nose.

So a TP costs a lot less, makes a tiny bit more power, and has a near zero failure rate. A stock cat doesn't flow as well as an hfc (I don't really know what the delta is) but is more durable under street use and actually reduces HC levels to the point that I personally don't notice the smell.

I may just run the stock cat on the street and the tp at the track.

 

i have the same issue..... ive been racing with stock cat all year with the exception of a few events with hfc.... my berk hfc i bought used and after a few months the honeycomb became loose... went back to stock cat because i dont want the smell or worry of running test pipe on the street

my car sounded sick with hfc / stock exhaust with mufflers cut off

i might try to buy the replacement cat and have it welded in after cutting out the broken honeycomb , not sure the labor is worth the trouble especially since i'll have to figure out a way to weld in the o2 sensor bung...

 

The same thing happened to me. I bought a used HFC and after a few months and several track days, the honeycomb rotated sideways and lodged itself in the back of the cat, clogging the exhaust. I cut it open, dumped out the guts, welded it back together, and went out for the rest of my sessions.

My plan is to pick up another HFC to use for auto-x and a muffler to go in place of the HFC for track days.