Hi Glyn,
I am sure you don't have a cat. If you have no O2 you wont have a cat. From what you describe about twin pipes from your manifold to the first exhaust muffler is exactly the same as my U.K. car. i.e. No O2, No cat.
You car was designed to run on either leaded or unleaded therefore no cat.
U.S. cars are a completely different kettle of fish to what the Euro models made for the U.K. were.
Another give away is the EZL wheel on the front passenger guard (RHD) Pictured. This is not in the cat cars (Euro). reading earlier posts - your car has this adjustment wheel. In an earlier post I listed the correct positions for this.


There is some heat shield metal insulation bolted to the body of my car that follows the exhaust pipes from the manifold to the first muffler under the (RHD) drivers seat area. If this metal insulation is loose it will make a rattling sound - in my case not in neutral but happens in drive at idle. In my case this was an easy to fix by getting under the car and tightening it up.

I recently changed my Fuel distributor in the hope that it was the cause of much as the same as your problems. One of the things I found was that there is a rubber grommet/seal between the fuel distributor and AFM body. Mine had stretched and was letting a little airleak and fuel into the air chamber. In the end changing the fuel distributor made no difference however the rubber seal replacement seemed to be a culprit.

I finally messed around with the air fuel ratio on the lambda tower. With a lot of trail and error eventually got the car running correctly. The car now accelerates like it never has before.

Because our cars are running open loop they require adjustment of this ratio to be spot on correct to function as designed. Adjusting the lambda tower can be very frustrating and really should be done with a CO2 exhaust analyzer by a professional.

The plastic thermostat cover was a boo boo by the designers - what were they thinking - It should be changed out Post Haste with a metal one.

Some cars designed for export were designed as a " global" car i.e. were designed to go to countries where poor quality petrol or leaded fuel was still commonly in use (at the time). You may find in your car manual (if you have one) that this detail is mentioned. Cats were not fitted obviously because the lead would destroy the precious metals used in cat construction. O2 units were superfluous if leaded fuels were used.

My car was exported from the U.K. to Singapore and then to Australia. Some Asian countries in the late eighties and early nineties still used leaded petrol extensively. Some petrol is rated at 89 octane.

regards Ivanerrol Australia with U.K. Import 190e 2.6.