Code 67 Help!

[Wischmaster]

I was driving along today, taking my girlfriend out to lunch and something happened. I was probably doing 30mph or so in 4th gear... nice and easy... and then I noticed a few minutes later my CEL came on. I'm like "That's not good." I turned off the car when we got to the parking lot and turned it back on and the CEL was still on. But the car drove fine so I knew it wasn't anything huge. So I went home and did the ECU test and it gave me the code of 67. I looked that up on a site and it read:

"Catalyst system Efficiency Below Threshold
malfunctioning or defective catalyst system"

What does that mean? What's a catalyst?

I was wondering if anyone has ever had this problem or has fixed it ever? What would you guys recommend doing?

Thanks!

[Wischmaster]

Wait a minute... sorry, did some searching on Honda-tech. Apparently that means the cat is bad. So does that mean I have to go buy a new one? Or should I just upgrade? If so, what cat would you guys recommend?

1996 Honda Civic EX btw.

[superbluecivicsi]

reset ecu. if it comes back, then, your cat has crapped. more likely clogged. get a new oem one or go hi flo or test pipe.

hi flo and test pipe may still throw you a cel, so an o2 sim would be nice.

[Wischmaster]

Yeah, I'll try to reset the ECU tomorrow. That's disconnecting the negative terminal for a few minutes right?

Anyways, I was thinking about the Skunk2 Testpipe. It already has an O2 Sensor bung on it so would that mean it would be functional without throwing a CEL?

[Wischmaster]

Ok, reset the ECU today and left it sit for a minute or two with the Negative terminal disconnected. Started her up and no CEL. Must have been just a bad code or something.

Thanks for the advice superbluecivicsi.