I FAILED the TEST ONLY smog check!
 

Well, technically, the State failed my car. Whatever.

I drove 35 miles on the highway @ 70-80 mph to get everything nice and hot. Since my A/C is out, and it was 95 F outside, I was nice an hot too! :(

Get to Moe's Smog Test Only center in Thousand Oaks... and there are three people in front of me. :mad: I had an appointment, and I was on time... but the guy needed to eat lunch so he was running late. My car sat for 45 minutes waiting (cooling)...

On the dyno, he is nice enough to run the 15 mph test in 1st (thanks dude). The 25 mph test is done in 2nd. Both are below 2000 RPM.

Results:

15 MPH - 1959 RPM

CO2 - 13.88
O2 - .46
HC - 47
CO - .82
NO - 292

25 MPH - 1939 RPM

CO2 - 13.90
O2 - .41
HC - 36
CO - .81
NO - 259

I failed @ 25 mph on the CO test. Allowed is .62 and I had .81!

Awrg!

My car has new plugs, new valve adjustment, new cap and rotor, new oil, is basically 100% stock and 100% smog legal (except for the wastegate dump pipe the tech didn't notice)!

Tomorrow, the tech wants me to bring it back. But, before I arrive he wants me to run it on the freeway in 3rd at 4000 rpm for 10 minutes then bring it right in to be his first customer. We'll see what happens....

(Not me in the pic - Not Moe either.)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1092173522.jpg

Put the alcohol in

.

Re: I FAILED the TEST ONLY smog check!
 

Beautiful car though.

Good luck tomorrow.

At this point, I need it more than the Porsche. :mad:

Point well taken. Kudos to you.

why not run the 25mph test in first like you would drive on the street? the high gearing of that trans messes up the test results. smaller diameter tires would also raise the rpms at 25mph and probably result in a lower CO.

What JW said. A recent poster said he did just that (run in as low a gear as possible for the required speed) and then passed.

I also read n article a couple of years ago, maybe in Excellence, about a guy who passed with small diameter tires. A little drastic, but it worked.

The hot engine and the higher revs will probably do it for you.

Good luck and let us know what happens.

What are the limits for each monitored pollutant? How close were you to the others? A turbo, with it's low static compression ratio, shouldn't have a NOx problem, so you can lean it out a bit and lower your CO and HC numbers.

Jerry Kroeger

Thanks JW. Good suggestion - Since I don't have smaller tires, I will see if they can run in 2nd.

The other parameters were all well within margin. The CO @ 15 mph was right on the border. I nearly failed that too!

You mean run in first like john said, right?

So you're a bit rich. What's the big deal? Just lean it out, pass the retest and get on with your life.

Good luck.

been there done that.

Cooled down 930 will spew heaps of CO.

These are your options:

1. Warm up the car
2. Run it in 1:st at 25mph (CIS is quite unprecise at low revs)

if that doesn't work:

3. Adjust down the CO (allens key)
4. Pour in some E85 alcohole
do everything above

if that doesn't work

5. Block one injector, making that cylinder an air-pump (emission laws don't say your car must hit on all cylinders ;) )

Emission,

They actually make you CA guys achieve .62% CO on an 86 car? Man that's tough. Is this the current spec for all cars, or was this the spec back in 86 for yours?

Yes, I'll see if they can run it in 1st.

BeepBeep. Thanks, I'll follow your list if I fail again tomorrow...

I don't know what the specs are across the board, but anything (CO) over .82 @ 15 mph and .62 @ 25 mph is fail.

I just noticed the paperwork has a DMV REASON FOR TESTING CODE: "High Emitter Profile (HEP)" ... I was targeted!

Moe knows his business but I'm afraid warming up alone is not going to help you that much. If I remember correctly, they do the 15 mph test first and then the 25 mph. So by the time you start the second test, you should be warmed up quite a bit.

Good luck for tomorrow and keep us posted. At least after this you will be set for 2 years....

The car had been sitting in my garage for nearly three weeks undriven (covered on a trickle charger). I wonder if that had anything to do with it. Most likely not.

Yes, another 2 years until the pain comes back... :(

Re: I FAILED the TEST ONLY smog check!
 

He told me that too for my Saab and then he was about 1/2 hour late in the morning and then still had to calibrate his equipment before use so my car ended up idling for close to 1 hour in the parking lot. At 15 mph I got 117 for HC and 735 for NOX (limits are 118 and 799). For a water-cooled car idling is not too bad but the only way the Porsche keeps warm is to actually drive it on the freeway.

So if this happens to you also tomorrow, make sure he give you a 15 minute warning so you can take it on the 101 again and drive it straight into his shop for the test.

Good luck

A friend that ownes a shop that smogs cars told me that low octane compared to high will decrease the co reading by 5- 10 points depending on how hot the car is. Did you dump low octane gas in there? That's a start. He also swears by this stuff http://www.blueskycleanair.com/?CFID=716876&CFTOKEN=93435303
He has passed a boat load of cars using this stuff. How about timing? I would lower it a tad. Maybe 2 degrees. My turbo saab when hooked up to the reader did not pass until I decreased the timing. That's worth a shot as well. I know I'm not giving you much, but you would be surprised at how much these little things affect emissions, emission.
good luck

Pouring some E85 will effectivly lean out the mixture as E85 has stochiometric mix of 9:1 instead of 14.7:1 for ordinary gasoline. It also produces less CO.

Unfortunatly, too lean mixture will produce more NOx beacuse of hotter combustion.

Whenever I used the alcohol trick the NOx dropped like a stone.

i may have missed it, what type of alcohol?

and sorry emission, you will nail it tomorrow. all of us, 80's cars are pulling for you. we are in this friggen hell together.

The irony of my screenname. :(

Where do I find this E85 alcohol? How many gallons can I put in (what mixture)?

sorry that I'm no more help on this smog game.. best of luck.

Bite your tongue! You were first to suggest installing a plugged injector... this may be the solution if I fail tomorrow.

The problem is, you have to run at a certain speed, within a certain RPM range...

-Wayne

Yes, what he said. Just lean the mixture out, and you'll pass no problem! Happens all the time on the SCs. The CO is the easiest thing to control on the CIS cars. When you get to Motronic, it becomes a bit more difficult...

-Wayne

Mine failed the rolling check on CO last november at a test-only station. I leaned it out, played with it, even had a local shop set the CO.
No real progress until I replaced my O2 sensor. Seems it was reacting too slowly causing swings in the mixture. After replacing the sensor it passed easily.

Lean it out a bit. I believe that using lower octane gas can make some difference. I went through three tests recently to get passed. The first I was using regular unleaded, and I got the best numbers of any of the three tests. The other two tests I had mid grade gas and failed once and squeeked by the second time.

Hey! How old is the O2 sensor?? If it's not in new condition the car will make more smog. Particularly at low rpm under small loads. Unless it's less than a year old get a new one. They "slow down" over time and even when they are still "working" you may get an improvement with a new one. My 560 Benz had this issue (CIS as well) and a new O2 sensor fixed it fast.

Alex

Dude.....reach in and disconnect the middle fuel injector on one side......everything falls like a stone.

I just posted about my similar problem...Test Only CA smog fail yesterday. We've definitely been targeted. All my cars at this point must see the Test Only guy every two years :(

Don't feel bad, Emission, my CO result was not even close to passing.

Can any details be given regarding MikeZ's suggestion to disconnect a fuel injector? How is it done?

Good Luck. That car deserves to be driven :)

I just got back. FAILED it twice again today (he ran the test two different times, trying some different things).

AAAAWWWRRRGGG!!!!

I'm going to lean my mixture, then try it again early next week. I'd also like to try to run some E85 if I can find it!

Curious. Is one of the things you tried disconnect a fuel injector?

I think I'll be checking my connections then trying to locate the E85 stuff myself.

Are the re-tests typically free...or $50 ea time? :eek:

E.....

Come up this weekend and we can put it on the analyzer....

Is there no oxygen sensor on that model of 930? I tell ya, it's cheap to change and may do the trick. Unless yours is new I'd go there. If it's a single wire use the Bosch generic. If it's a four wire, use one from a Mustang 5.0 and splice the wires. If your car passed ever in it's life, why should you have to do some hokey "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" fix now when Autozone has your part!! Buy the special socket tool while you are there and make the job super easy.

Keep us posted.

Alex

I hope he is running these tests as a pretest. Any failed tests are registered with the DMV as the system is hooked up to their computers.

Get a CO meter and lean it out. I did on my 3.0 motor and it ran like cr@p, but it passed. After the test I drove around the corner and cranked open the CIS.

The O2 sensor is brand-new (3-wire, I think). Maybe 100 miles on it. I put it in just the other day.

The first test was $39 (with coupon). Subsequent tests have been free - thank goodness (though had I passed, it would have gladly parted with a little extra cash... ;)).

All of these tests are registering with the DMV. It doesn't hurt me as far as I can tell.

I think I'll contact MikeZ about bringing it up...

What are all the other numbers like? If they are near the limits but just under, I would suspect the CAT is on its 9th life. How many miles on the car? Is it the original CAT?