Well up until today the car was running fine, the surging is almost completely gone. However, I'm beginning to notice some of the early signs showing up again. My car feels a little... congested, for lack of a better term. It doesn't seem to like water or cold very much (that's when the problems are most noticeable), but we haven't had much of either lately so I wanted to get some opinions before anything gets worse.
First, I know there's an issue with the rear O2. It might just be my hack-job fix (I had to cut the connector off and join the wires directly, all during my lunch break, with no jack). I was planning on just replacing both O2s, since they have probably never been changed, but want to know your thoughts and if there's anything I should watch out for when buying an O2 if I buy online, and if these would even be related to my problem.
Second, I'm fairly certain my cat is bad. As long as the MAF and the EGR were bad (as in before I got the car) I'd say there's a pretty good chance, and after reading around a bit one member here stated that not being able to rev over 3k RPMs is a tell-tale sign of a bad cat. As I mentioned before I get heavy vibration at 3k, and don't really trust trying to push it. Problem is a cat's a bit expensive, so I'd like to know if there's some way to test and know for sure the cat is bad before I spend the money.