Aircare question....

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LandonE

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Hey all..
I've got a 74' Plymouth roadrunner (sorry it's not an A Body, theres no "Canada" Section on the B-Body forum)

Just wondering.. Does it need cat's?
and what year were cat's introduced?

Thanks
 
It shoudn't. Does it say "unleaded fuel only" like on the dash or the area around the gas filler? (these were the cat eqip cars). Also. the cat eqip cars had a sticker under the hood that sid "catalyst". I had always remembered to the best of my knowledgs that the cat equiped cars did not show up 'til 1975 but who knows.....maybe california, you know what I mean might have had them earlier.....
 
My best recollection is they started in 1975 in the U.S. Not all cars got them right away though. I remember some foreign cars didn't need them that soon. Cars that required unleaded fuel (because of the catalytic converters) should have a smaller filler tube opening where you put in the gas. The unleaded pumps had a smaller nozzle than the leaded pumps. That way you could put an unleaded nozzle into an unleaded filler neck but the leaded nozzle wouldn't go into the unleadded neck.
 
I'm pretty sure that 75 was the first year for mandatory cats. When I lived on the coast I had a 75 Olds 442 that had a cat on it and the first thing I did was tear the cat off it and put true duels on it. Never had a problem with air scare because of no cats. It may be different now because that was back in the late 90's.
 
Catalytic converters have never been mandatory in the US or Canada. Emissions regulations simply began getting strict enough starting in '75 that most cars needed catalysts to comply with them, and that has remained the case. Some US '76 models, mostly Chryslers with Lean Burn and Hondas with CVCC, did not have catalysts. Many Canadian models didn't have catalysts until as late as '82. Add a few years on both sides of the border for trucks.

No '74 models came with catalysts on either side of the border.
 
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