What makes that hot cat smell?

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What’s going on when you floor it for a minute or two and your cat gives off that hot cat smell. Also noticed when the driver ahead of you floors it to haul buggy around a slow driver.

Some of it seems to be a hint of sulfur, that makes sense to me since the engine will be in open loop and running rich. What’s the rest? Are deposits in the cat burning off?
 
I believe it is because of the sudden change to a high volume of a rich fuel mixture. I'm just glad this is about catalytic converters and not kitty cats.
 
We too were sniffing our cat as I read the title. "How opportune that Malcolm is sleeping near the radiator", I said.

I think both smells of instant operation as well as burn off is occurring when you punch it. I love scorching up a long hill for reasons such as this.
 
It tends to be worse on cars that dont get driven hard often. Its perfectly normal during WOT situations like that. Cars that get driven hard usually dont put off much smell beyond raw fuel
 
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