last night for the second time I saw a Honda car rolling to the side of the freeway as If it died. When I finally get next to it I see what looks like a fireball underneath. Yep . the catalytic converter is glowing bright orange. Man, youd think the interior above it would go up in flames, or at least the driver or passenger would feel it under their feet and bail out.

 

Those cats are pretty tough. So are the cars. When my friend did his cam swap, he put the coil packs on wrong and he said the cats got white hot. Hot enough to destroy whatever was inside them. Floorboard never got hot though.

 

Once replaced the interior in a Ford Ranger that cooked off the cat. Woman and son got out and closed doors with windows up so it snuffed the fire coming through the console. Melted the center of the dash, console, smoked everything inside and heat crusted all the crud under the truck.

Cat was a solid mass of fused honeycomb - don't know why it didn't melt the casing.

At least they didn't park it on a pile of leaves when it flamed-on.