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MPGMike, about what the Seimens engineer told you on keeping the cat at operating temperature:
It seems to me that the standard exhaust system upstream from the cat must be dissipating a lot of heat, especially when a compact factory cast-iron manifold is replaced with steel tube street headers. Cold winter air, and rainwater splashed on the exhaust pipe must add to the problem of getting exhaust gases delivered piping-hot to the cat.How effective would exhaust header and pipe coatings such as Jet Hot be in keeping the exhaust gases hot enough to keep the cat working even in a lean-burn situation? How about the combination of a coating plus thermal wrappings?
Eliminating the EGR system should(?) add a little heat to the exhaust gasses getting to the cat, since the point of EGR is to reduce peak burn temperature. But what about water injection? You want to use water as a peak burn temp depressor to avoid detonation in a high-compression (high fuel efficiency) engine. Does the exhaust gas temperature increase from high compression roughly cancel out the cooling effect of the water mist? I'm trying to guess the effect of these things on the operation of the cat. The cat is one of the emissions devices I accept, and I want to keep it fully functional.
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