There are studies that show a diet with NO arginine clinical signs will exhibit within one hour of just one meal.
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/115/4/524.full.pdf (page 2/525, second column)
"However, within an hour of consuming a single meal of a purified diet containing all the essential nutrients with the exception of arginine, near adult cats exhibited sialorrhea (frothing at the mouth), ataxia, emesis and tetanic spasms with emprosthotonus. In severe cases the clinical signs included cyanosis and death from respiratory failure (15, 16). Arginine deficiency in the cat is the most rapidly induced nutrient deficiency observed in any mammal."