1998 Contour SVT Problem: Cats and CEL: Please Help!

[shocker.boy7]

Hey everybody I own a 1998 Contour SVT, recently my CEL came on and I took it in to ford and they said that the Catalytic converters needed to be replaced. My problem is that lately the car lost alot of power and can it be due to the cats? Also when I gas it fully it seems like it takes very long for it to reach high RPM's and like the needle picks up and stops then moves up again, like the car has a hard time accelerating. It might be the fuel pump or spark plugs bad, i cant figure it out. My cel is on and also sometimes when the car is ideling it would go below 500 rpm and feels like the car was dying or stalling then out of nowhere it would sound like a pop from the exhaust and it would go back to 800 rpm's and sound normal. But anyways, can it be that my car lost its power due to bad catalytic converter? It use to be so much faster! Now it barely moves after 60mph it doesn't even pull. If you guys need more details about specific things let me know I don't know if I provided all the info to get some help. Thanks =)

[discnik]

Those sound like typical catalytic converter symptoms. Loss of power, slow to accellerate, etc. The plugged cats. are not allowing free flow of the exhaust out of the combustion chambers so no nice new air/fuel mixture is getting in.

[beyondloadedSE]

Whats the code(s) you were throwing? That would help pinpoint it a lot. I bet its the P0420.

Sounds to me like it could be a cat. Not sure if it has been replaced, but they carry an 8 year/80K mile warranty.

Are your secondaries opening as well?