Let me if you will start this answer with this statement. I think you said you paid $600.00 for this car and you are tired of spending money on it. The car is 19 years old and subject to who knows how many miles of abuse and neglect. While the car may or may not be a good car, I do not know. But I have a 94 and it has been purchased as a 2 year old used car. Now while it may be less miles on it or not compared to yours I have had a few problems with it but at the moment I have had all the upholstery fixed so it is clean and nice when you get in it and I screwed up a paint job on it (MY BAD) if I had to drive it across country and not expect a problem it would do that for me.
But it has been maintained well.
The time has long since passed that a $600.00 car is a good buy, it used to be once, I used to own them but they were 3 year old late model used cars. The Saturn is a complex piece of machinery and can be very difficult and expensive to repair but so can any 1994 vintage car made by any one.
So back to the Catalytic converter.
I have had that happen on my Saturn. It had partially broken and did not get into the rest of the exhaust system but it partially plugged the catalytic converter.
The symptoms were a slight change in performance, the engine would run hot so on days when the temperature was high, the car ran border line overheating. It just never actually boiled water out but I have had it where ever "HOT" indicator light on the dash board was on. Very sparkly!
And there was a rattly noise when you started the car only. As the Cat was only partially broken in my state I have to smog test my cars, it would pass smog.
Putting your hand at the exhaust pipe is not really a good test of things. Yes exhaust gases may be coming through but just because you feel them does not mean there is not some form of blockage.
That is all you can determine. Do I use that as a test? Yes when I am looking to see if there is some form of a miss-fire. You can feel the pulsing.
But just because you feel pulses does not indicate that the catalytic converter or the muffler is any kind of an o.k.
IF the catalytic converter had turned into small pieces it is very real that they MAY be in the muffler plugging things up.
IF you are able to start and run the car then all that says is that the muffler is not plugged solid.
It means there is enough of the opening to allow gasses to the through. But performance may be down and the car may have tendency to run hot. Also depending on the car and the design of the exhaust manifold to tale-pipe junction it may even blow gaskets out. I had a car that did exactly that, but not my Saturn.
I think it is very REAL that you may have too much back pressure. And unbolting the muffler might very well indicate that.
I live where rust is not a problem and on my 1994 Saturn I can do that easily but if I lived in the rust belt I do not think that I could do that.
This is a perfectly legitimate direction to go for diagnostics. And it may not be cheap.
Exhaust system repairs rarely are. Here I pay about 175 dollars for a new catalytic converter installed. The only way I can think of checking out the muffler is removing it and shaking it to try to remove what ever is in it if any thing. And depending on the amount of rust you have to deal with either re-installing the muffler or replacing it with new!
You may have to spend more money than you wanted to. I find that to be true pretty much all the time. Why? No longer are $600.00 used cars a very good buy. Nor are things like used mufflers but I recently did that and also have a used catalytic converter. And a welder and a way to assemble things.

 

One way to check the exhaust is to remove the O2 sensor and put a pressure gauge there. You need a gauge that can take over 100 psi as you will blow out a 60 psi gauge. You can get cheap air gauges that go well over 100 psi about anywhere. Use appropriate adapters to screw it into the O2 bung and it should never go over 100 psi when revved up. If it does, you have an issue.

 

unfortunately i cannot afford to go out and just buy things right now considering school started back and i had to go to two days a week at my job so for right now testing pressure is out of my ability...bad position for me right now but i cannot change this. thank god for my bicycle is all i can say right now

cut muffler off, there were no bolts by the muffler only about a foot or so after cat

idles perfect with o2 out of manifold and unplugged, give it gas and stumbles at 2000rpm

install o2 sensor and idles rough but can now give it gas till about 1500

i did notice that the o2 sensor tip is black like coal after a couple days ago i cleaned it with emory cloth, cleaned it again today

as far as exhaust coming out i can feel at idle anything else i have noone around to help me test

i took two videos which i am trying to get on here so you guys can see where i'm at.

 

this is o2 out and unplugged



this is o2 in (runs same whether plugged into pigtail or not


the rattle you hear is the exhaust pipe knocking around the rear trailing arms after muffler being cut off (surprised to not hear a vibrator in a tin can sound after taking off exhaust and especially hollowing out cat)

 

I know you said you don't want to throw parts at it, but is there an ECM that you could swap to your car? Just an idea. I have learned by working on heavy duty electronic diesel engines, that when all else fails, change the ecm.

 

only if the one from my dead beretta fits

 

I have just read your post from start to finish again and I think you threw us a red herring early on. Your code 22 for tps, I don't think you checked it correctly. Most tps have three pins in their connector, but there are some with 5 or 6. The ones with 5 or 6 have an idle position switch ( IPS 5 pin) or IPS and wide open throttle (WOT 6 pin), but in most cases pins 1, 2, and 3 are the tps potentiometer pins.

You need a VOM (volt ohm meter) set to Ohms and measure resistance between pins 1&2 and between 2&3. Then move the throttle from idle to WOT and monitor the resistance. It should change smoothly as you move the throttle. One set of pins will have low resistance and move up to a high resistance, the other will be just the opposite. I think that you might find some open circuits conditions around quarter to mid scale or just a little earlier.

Pins 1&3 should have the high resistance constantly.

If all this checks out, then in the harness, turn the key to the run position and check which pin has the 5vdc. Turn the key back to off and then check the opposite pin for resistance to ground, it should be zero or close to it. The pin in the middle should be going to the computer. If you are not getting continuity to ground, that could be the problem.

 

Update to my earlier post. I have a Haynes manual for all S series Saturns and it is a little more helpful for your situation than my 00-02 FSM.

Your TPS is a three pin with a blue signal wire on pin 3 and a black ground wire on pin B. The supply voltage, 5vdc is on pin A and that color usually is gray. The manual calls for back probing the wires, something that i do not like to do unless it is absolutely necessary. I would do like I suggested above but you should get a low to high resistance as the throttle sweeps from idle to WOT on pins B and C. A high to low between A & C and high all the time from A to B. B should have continuity to ground on the harness side.

If it passes all these tests, there is still one more possibility and that is a high resistance in the 5 vdc line. When you measure the voltage at the harness with it disconnected, especially with a DVM, the voltage can read good even when it is not. For this, you have to back probe the gray wire with the harness connected and you should get 4.7 or higher. At the blue wire, you should get less than 1 volt at the idle position and it should sweep smoothly to 4 - 4.8 vdc at WOT.

 

only one code is present now and its 26 quad driver output....i went to the junkyard originally thinking it was tps and was able to pick up 4 of them, i then proceeded to the shop i worked at and had my buddy (he helped in trying to diagnose the problem and he gave up) help me sweep test the tps all four tested good, before i could not get the car to start and actually idle which was what brought us to taking out the o2 and seeing it run and finding out the cat fried and broke out the insides. i'm not denying the tps circuit is bad but it is hard to swallow when i get 5v from the wiring and sweep tests prove fine on all four (yes i have used all four tps).... i will take what you said and try it out.

 

OK I was not aware that you tried 4 different TPSs and that you did the sweep test. But there is more to this circuit than just the TPS. If you are reading the supply voltage on an open supply line, that does not mean that you are getting the supply voltage.

I know that sounds like double talk, but if you are using a DVM, that can happen because a DVM has infinite input impedance, so it doesn't load a circuit, that is no current flows. Without current flow, there is no voltage drop. This is why the ultimate test is to probe the back of the blue wire and check for a voltage sweep. This checks the complete circuit from supply to the computer and to ground.

But first, I would check the black wire to ground at the wiring harness before proceeding to the voltage sweep test. I would want to rule out a bad ground before compromising the integrity of the signal wire. For that test, the simple way is to poke a needle through the wire, read the voltage, then cover the holes in the wire insulation with RTV.

Personally, for this type of test, I have made a set of jumper wires for up to 4 pin connectors. You can do this but it will cost you about $15 in materials, but you can use them on almost any connector up to 4 or 5 pins (contacts). Let me know if you are interested, but for just a one time use, I would stick a pin through the wire.

For code 26, this might help

http://www.saturnfans.com/forums/arc...p/t-56050.html