[David O'D]

I recently had a new cat installed on my Spider, and now there's more scraping over speed bumps - I suspect it hangs a little lower than the old cat did. The scraping seems to be from the vicinity of the cat, not the rear of the exhaust.

Here's the page from the shop manual. I see what appears to be a fixed bracket (3 & 4) fwd of the cat, apparently not adjustable. The two rubber hangers well aft don't look like they are adjustable, either. Are there adjustments I can try myself with the car on jackstands, or will I need to go back to the muffler shop to get this fixed?

David OD
Laguna CA

 

[spiderserie4]

could be that the bracket is welded slightly off spec on the new cat, and allows the whole thing to hang lower....did you compare the old and the new on the garage floor before fitting?

the transmission to exhaust hanger doesn't really allow much room for adjustment.....the hanger (4) has oval holes but that doesn't leave much adjustment
I suppose you could undo those two bolts, then jack up the cat carefully, before tightening them up again.
Also the 2 rubber bushes get very soft if oil contaminated.....worth swopping those out if they look sodden, as poor bushes would allow the cat to drop too a little

otoh. has your car been lowered at all?

 

[alfaparticle]

Bracket 4 has been cut and re-welded at least twice on my car which has a custom exhaust.

 

[Andrew]

If your orig cat was a stock Alfa one, they were flat and tucked up pretty well. Modern generic cats are bigger around and have a built in heat shield on top, and thus have to be positioned lower so as to clear the floor. That's in addition to whether your muffler person tucked it up as high as possible. I had to bend the heat shield up on a 78 Spider I had after I put a 90s cat on, for clearance. If yours has lots of room above the cat, I'd take back and ask the mufflerist to manipulate as high as possible.

Is your car borderline low? Cross bumps at an angle!
Andrew