I have a 2000 ford escort zx2. I gutted out the catalitic converter. After doing so had check engine light for about a month then went off. Trying to get my inspection passed. I have had no check engine light for about 4 months now. I took my car to get it inspected. The test shows that the O2 sensors are not ready. The guy there told me car needs more drive time. He told me drive 50 miles, and so I did. Came back and they were still not ready so he told me drive it around some more and come back tommarrow. Ok, now the thing I wanna know is… is there some kinda pressure sensor not letting the O2 sensor read? or some how the sensors can detect when the catalitic insides are not there due to pressure making the O2 sensors not go into ready mode?.. or do i need to keep driving around in circles till a miracle happens?.. lol
If you are in the habit of riding with less than a quarter tank of gas that can happen as well. When the fuel level is too full or empty then the system monitors will not run. Also, just driving it around won’t do it. There is a thing called a “drive cycle” and until all of the drive cycle conditions are met, the monitors will not run. Too run without a valid cat’ you would need to use an O2 emulator for the downstream sensor (they are illegal now, so it would have to be hidden well) and hope the inspector doesn’t whip out his non contact thermometer and start checking the inlet and outlet temps on the cat’. Besides, there is really no reason to gut out a catalytic convertor. They are not an obstruction unless they get crudded up from oil consumption, mixture errors or mechanical damage. There are “high flow” convertors for sale from several suppliers. Or…move to Florida :)!