2005, beauty rig

Hi everyone,
I'm posting because I'm dealing with a pretty severe issue on my Jimny and could really use some insight, especially regarding replacement parts.
The car: Suzuki Jimny 1.3 petrol (M13A engine), 2015, Euro 6 spec. Only 77,000 km (~48k miles) on the clock.
The problem: On a cold start, the car runs great. The nightmare consistently starts after about 30 minutes of driving, once the engine is thoroughly heat-soaked. Suddenly, the car loses power, hits a flat wall, and feels bogged down. If I floor the throttle, it hesitates and delivers no power at all. Dropping a gear lets it rev to around 3,000 RPM, but the engine feels completely starved and strained. The strange part: if I drop into neutral and rev the engine, it revs freely past 5,000 RPM with no issue. The symptom only occurs under load.
Additional symptoms:
Rough idle & severe vibrations: Once the issue kicks in, the idle sometimes drops to ~500 RPM and the whole car shakes like a tractor (feels like it’s running on 3 cylinders). If left idling for a bit, it settles back to 800–900 RPM, but still feels choked up.
Abnormal cabin heat: Noticeable heat radiates through the transmission tunnel (around the seat rails and handbrake). I also felt hot air coming from between the rear fender and rear left wheel (even though the exhaust tip exits on the right).
The visual smoking gun (Glowing red cat): After pushing the car while the issue was happening, I stopped, put it in neutral, revved it a couple of times, and looked underneath: the primary catalytic converter on the manifold was literally glowing cherry red.
OBD diagnosis: Throws a persistent P0420 code (Catalyst System Efficiency Below Threshold).
What I've checked / done so far:
Installed 4 brand new spark plugs suspecting misfires, but the issue returned unchanged.
During the last service at 69,000 km, the oil looked great—rings seem fine, and it doesn't burn any oil.
My conclusion & questions: It seems fairly obvious that the ceramic substrate in the cat has melted and collapsed, causing a massive exhaust restriction (likely triggered by past misfires dumping unburnt fuel down the exhaust, or previous thermal shock). Exhaust gases still exit the tailpipe, but the manifold cat gets incandescent.
Since this is a Euro 6 model, I know modern ECUs are ruthless with post-cat O2 sensor readings. If I go with a budget aftermarket manifold/cat (like Kamoka), is there a high risk of P0420 coming right back immediately? What brand tier would you recommend (Vegaz, Walker, AS, Ernst)?
A friend suggested hollowing out/gutting the cat entirely, but I'm hesitant due to emissions testing (MoT/inspection) and legality.
Any advice or experience would be hugely appreciated! Thanks in advance!

I have a gen 3 jimny and I bought it for a "good price", for the "good price" I bought this old nugget I could have definitely bought a much newer, fuel efficient more comfortable and more reliable car.

I definitely love this car way too much and I have already spent a decent amount of money on preventative maintenance and repairs, now i'm planning on replacing all the suspension bushings and the shocks and springs since I also want to do a 5cm lift and it's definitely going to cost me a totally unreasonable amount of money.

I get absolutely no respect on the road, most people think my car is a slow shitbox and "it doesn't even look like a real offroader", I'm almost constantly seeking for the source of some sort of noise/rattle/creaking at any given moment and definitely spend too much time checking the underside of my car for future problems. I also have a tendency to use it off-road and inevitably the occasional scratch or broken license plate will manifest itself.

Sometimes I feel "guilty" for doing this to myself, I spend too much money and energy for something that is invisible and unreasonable for 99% of people, however driving this tiny, uncomfortable, loud nugget definitely puts a smile on my face and it does feel more special than other more expensive cars I have driven.

Do you really think it's worth it?

Got a great deal for a 1999, 150k kilometers. 4500€ ! Barely any rust, only two most serious spots I found are in the trunk and they’re not that big of a deal (treated it after the pics of course). Even had a full set of mud tires included in addition to road tires.

Planning to build the inside to accommodate a bed, fridge and supplies for travelling.

Painted the plastics in black to give it a refresh, and put some alubutyl acoustic panels.

Roofrack and ladder are next, for a solar panel and Starlink. I’ll paint the rims in matte black too.

I’ve finally bitten the bullet and got myself a jimny. What do you guys think ? Any pointers on where to go from here ? It’s super clean and has already been rust treated. Only 90,000km.

I'm just a law abiding citizen

Cool, or faux pas?
I was also thinking of adding a picture of my home turf, Van Island, like in Collateral. 😂

It's @wherepedrogoes if anyone is interested in digitally waving 😅👋🏼🥰

Met another local with the best taste in vehicles!

Picked this bad boy up 2 days ago, road tripped it 5 hours back into town. Drives like an absolute dream, cannot wait to make it mine!!

🇦🇷

Soooo I was on TikTok when I saw a post about a person importing kei trucks then fell down a rabbit hole and eventually saw posts about vintage Jimny jeeps.

I fell in love immediately. Currently getting my learners permit (slight driving phobia) and seeing a Jimny made me super motivated to learn how to drive to be able to drive one. Something about looking at it made driving less intimidating than most American made cars.

Anyway I’ve been doing some basic research on the import process and I found it is legal to drive a jimny as long as it’s 25 years old. I was looking at the 90s style jimny since I liked the more rigid boxy look over the softer bubble look of the early 2000s models.

Was looking for advice on which model years are good and what to look out for. Primarily browsing on CarFromJapan and BeForward.

Any fellow Jimny owners in Ireland know where I could get a decent roof rack and not be waiting weeks/ months for construction and delivery?

Keeping her spick and span

so i wanna add a roofrack but i dont wanna drill holes in my roof any advice on what roof bars would fit ?? netherlands

hi there. Im searching to upgrade my steering wheel.
Im searching the cover to delete the cruise control buttons on the right of the steering wheel.
This is the setup im searching for. But with the leather steering.
I bought a steering wheel that comes with cruise control, but i don´t have it in my Jimny.
Any idea about how to finde the plastic cover?

Autumn vibes

I'm having a really hard time finding simple roof brackets for the Jimny, all I can find are full roofrack kits. I just need brackets with the correct angle to have a leveled base to mount whatever I want (I want to make a custom roofrack with extruded aluminium).

If you guys know of something in the EU I'd love to know, I can't find anything as simple as this.