Just got my 02' Ram 1500 5.9 back from a complete remanufactured motor job. The guy that done my motor suggested as a precautionary thing to get a new catalytic converter put on since the truck has 230k miles on it. He said that a bad or stopped up catalytic converter will make the motor run hotter than it suppose to thus causing harm to my motor. Well I took it to my local muffler shop and they suggested I wait until my truck throws a light and that the truck will have a sensor saying that the cat is bad. The price on a new cat I priced there is $310 installed. Although that is alot of money I wouldn't mind spending it only if I absolutely needed to.

My question is, what to do? Should I go ahead and change the cat regardless or wait til my truck throws a light then get one put on? Or does these things throw a light well PAST the time it needed to be changed?

Just dumped $2600 in a complete engine rebuild and it's running great and I don't want to jeopardize this motor in any way.

Please note this truck had a Flow master exhaust installed prior to me buying the truck, it has 1 catalytic converter, then goes back into the flow master then splits into dual exhaust from the flowmaster back

 

IMO I would leave it.

 

I would only worry about it if you have to pass emissions.
I have to go through emissions testing every two years in the Portland Metro area.
I failed with an old truck a few years ago, installed a new cat. Passed with flying colors

 

there is no cel dtc for restricted cat only cat efficiency. the cats could be restricted and not set a dtc.

if the cats restricted you would have lack of power and bogging on snap throttle. If you have no symptoms forgettabout it.

if its that much of a concern you could have the backpressure of the exhaust measured.