Some Tips to Enhance Your Catalytic Converter

While the Catalytic Converter does a supreme job in keeping the car emissions clean, its performance can still be improved a lot---through your knowledge and help.

Among the noted liabilities of a catalytic converter is that it only works at a fairly high temperature. When the car starts cold, the catalytic converter will have a hard time in trying to reduce the pollution in the exhaust. A solution for this is to move the catalytic converter closer to the engine. This means that hotter exhaust gases will be able to reach the catalytic converter, making it heat up faster, although this may also reduce the life of the catalytic converter because it is being exposed to extremely high temperatures. You should know that most car makers have positioned their catalytic converters under the front passenger seat, making it far enough from the engine to keep the temperature down to levels that will not harm it.

Another bright idea for the enhancement of the catalytic converter is to preheat it. Preheating the catalytic converter is a convenient way to reduce emissions, and in this case, the use of electric resistance heaters is highly suggested. Unfortunately, the 12-volt electrical systems on most cars do not provide enough energy or power to heat the catalytic converter fast enough. Most people do not have the patience to wait several minutes for the catalytic converter to heat up before starting their car. Hybrid cars that have big, high-voltage battery packs can provide enough power to heat up the catalytic converter very quickly, which is probably why their catalytic converters are often in premium performance.

Hence, it is not enough for you to take good care of your catalytic converter, but it is vital that you know where it is located as well, and how fast does it work in which temperature.

When the year 2006 came, the RL made history by being the first Acura vehicle to be able to offer an optional Collision Mitigation Braking System (CMBS). This feature is considered to be a revolutionary safety technology, which monitors the potential rear-end collisions. It makes use of audio, visual and tactile signals in order to alert drivers of the risk of collision. It assists in brake operation as well as the tension in front seatbelts. In so doing, it helps reduce impact on occupants and vehicle damage, in such circumstances where the collision become unavoidable. Unlike other pre-collision systems, the CMBS automatically applies the brakes to mitigate the severity of a collision.

The CMBS system monitors the distance between the RL and the car directly in front of it up to a distance of 300 feet and the rate of closure between the two vehicles with the use of a millimeter-wave radar unit located inside the front grille. In case the closing rate increases to a point where a collision is likely to occur, the system uses visual, and olfactory warnings to set off the driver to take preventative action. Basing on the driver's response, the system will then determine if the possibility of a collision has decreased to an acceptable level. If so, the CMBS system will disengage. However, if response of the driver does not sufficiently reduce the risk of a collision, the system will issue a secondary warning. This consists of audible, visual and tactile elements as well as light braking, to alert the driver to take action.

And when the closing rate increases so much that a collision already becomes unavoidable, the CMBS can initiate hard braking to reduce the vehicle's speed. This also strengthens the tension on the driver's and front passenger's seatbelts, which help reduce the gravity of the crash.