Other than a blown plenum gasket or badly leaking valve seals, running without an o2, is one way to ruin the cat in fairly short order.

 

You are very passionate about your plenums and cats aren't you

 

Gone for the weekend...this topic got a bit heated when I was gone i guess. Well when I read the post to plug it back in or burn my valves... I rushed to plug it back in because I did not want to harm my engine. So I just dealt with warming up the truck for 5 minutes before I drove. I am going to pick one up this week and install it (hopefully not destroying any threads). Additional question is why is it that after the truck warms up and runs great, does that indicate that there some kind of heat sensor on the o2 sensor?

After I get the new one from the stealer this week I will let you all know the outcome.

Thanks again for all the input. Great site with passionate posters.

 

There's an actual heater element in the sensor -- until they hit 600 degrees Fahrenheit the sensor is wildly inaccurate. As they near end of service life, though, a higher temperature is required to make them (less in-) accurate, so they give up grief from the time the PCM control loop closes until they reach that higher temperature.

Please do let us know how it works out for you.

 

OK went to stealer and got new upstream O2, took out old, and wouldn't you know it wrong plug, even after gave them the vin to look it up. As it turns out I guess mine was like some export emissions or something. Anyway installed new O2 and truck runs great, especially after I had replaced plugs, cap and rotor (thinking that was the original problem). Side note, almost stripped the nut portion of the old O2 trying to get it off, started the truck and got it hot, and she came out.

Thanks for the input on the subject.

 

Thanks for the followup, EJ. It's good to know you got it straightened out!