Repair And Fix it

Automotive automatic transmissions use a torque converter to transmit torque between the crankshaft and the transmission input shaft. The torque converter links the crankshaft and transmission to provide fluid coupling and torque multiplication.

What are the Torque Converter Components?

The converters essential components are the impeller, the turbine, the stator and the lock-up clutch. The converter is filled with automatic transmission fluid, which is key to transmitting energy between the engine and transmission while smoothing excessive vibration.

How does a Torque Converter Operate?

The impeller is driven by the engines crankshaft. As it spins, vanes charge the fluid, which in turn drives the turbine. The turbine is mounted on and powers the transmission input shaft. The stator is mounted between the two, altering the flow of the transmission fluid back to the impeller as it comes off of the turbine. This provides a torque multiplication feature, maximizing the amount of power sent to the transmission.

What Does the Lock-Up Clutch do?

The torque converters secondary function is as a lock-up clutch. When the vehicle is cruising at a constant speed, the turbine and the impeller turn at nearly the same speed. The torque multiplication function is no longer applicable, so the lock-up clutch engages to lock the impeller to the turbine. The torque converter then serves as a direct linkage between the engine and the drivetrain.

Catalytic converters, which are responsible for igniting and burning unburned engine exhaust gases, became standard automotive equipment on all cars beginning with model year 1975. Although catalytic converters help to make engine exhaust gases cleaner, they are not without their minuses. What follows is a brief list of the potential benefits of removing automotive catalytic converters.

Increased Horsepower

Cars that have their catalytic converters removed experience an increase in engine horsepower. Catalytic converters create a significant source of engine back-pressure due to the constrictive effects they have on exiting engine exhaust gases. Removal of catalytic converters from cars allows exhaust gases to exit their engines much faster and at higher levels.

Better Gas Mileage

Since catalytic converter removal allows for exhaust gases to exit a cars engine at increased speeds, engine back-pressure is reduced, which lessens engine strain. This reduction in engine back-pressure and engine strain enables an engine to work more easily, and thus reduces fuel consumption and increases gas mileage.

Lower Engine Operating Temperature

Since removing a catalytic converter lessens the burden on a cars engine by enabling engine exhaust to vacate the engine more easily, a net effect is a reduction in engine operating temperature. The more easily an engine functions and the less work it has to do results in less friction, less load and, ultimately, a lower operating temperature.

More Fuel Options

Cars equipped with catalytic converters run only on unleaded gasoline. Lead-based gasoline, which produces more power and better engine combustion, quickly destroys the inner catalyst materials of catalytic converters. A car with no catalytic converter will be able to run on a variety of lead-based and/or high-performance fuels that would not be possible with a catalytic converter.

Healthier Exhaust Sound

Catalytic converters operate like car mufflers, whose sole purpose is to muffle the sound of exiting engine exhaust gases. Although catalytic converters burn unburned exhaust gases exiting an engine, thus making tail pipe emissions cleaner, they also further muffle a cars exhaust sound and bestow a somewhat timid, tempered exhaust sound. Without a catalytic converter, a cars exhaust sound becomes a little louder, a little deeper and more distinctive.

The catalytic converter in auto exhaust systems controls air pollution by chemically converting unburned hydrocarbons and combustion products into natural atmospheric gases. Motorists in Alabama may seek to replace these devices with a straight piece of exhaust pipe in the belief removal of the converter increases engine horsepower, or because the converter has failed and they want to avoid the costs of replacing it. But they would be breaking Alabama and federal law.

Systems Must Work

The Alabama Pollution Control Act (State Code Chap. 28, Sec. 22-12) requires owners of automobiles that are equipped with air pollution control systems to maintain those systems in good working order.

Cant Drive Car

The Alabama pollution law prohibits operating a motor vehicle in the state if its catalytic converter and other air pollution control systems have been removed, disabled, or are otherwise not working correctly. Violators face a potential maximum $10,000 fine and up to a year in jail.

Federal Law, Too

Even if Alabama law had stood silent on catalytic converters, there still is a federal law that prohibits removal or replacement of a properly functioning catalytic converter. This law applies in all 50 states, said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys website. Violations by individuals are punishable by a fine of up to $2,500, while a business could be fined $25,000. Federal law requires that a failed converter be replaced with one that meets EPA standards and is a match for the original equipment.