I added a gallon of Xylene. retested, it failed by FOURTY UNITS! thats right, 40, this whole mess started 2 weeks ago, it was at 3300 now its at 1363. Brought it home, added another half gallon of xylene, and brought it BACK... they brought on the dyno (after turning it off for 5minutes) and the reading went to 2250. im like WTF. i hardly changed anything!

There is another inspection station equal distance from me, i adjusted the AFM from 7 to 7.5 and the next reading was 1700. I added another turn CCW to the AFM to 8.5 then it read 2100.

I didnt want the car sitting with the xylene in it, thats got to be some nasty stuff, so i ran the tank till reserve then added 10 gal of 93 and drove it around some more.

im going to try and talk to a porsche shop here, and i think im just going to buy a sticker.

Tell them to run the 15mph test in 1st gear.

no kidding. in 2nd gear and 15MPH, that car is turning, what, 1600 RPMs?

the test is done at 15mph, I asked both facilities to do the test in first gear. Both refused.

is this some sort of policy? i'd ask to speak with the manager.

both said its the 'state testing parameters' to 'always use second gear, no exceptions'

ive driven and run the car more, and harder, in two weeks than i have in almost 3 years. Were both getting tired of it.

also, i installed the old 02 sensor last night, it acted the exact same way as the new one. So i think we can rule out 02 sensor. Ive ruled out the DVM. the engine pulls 18-19" Hg on vacuum, idle is smooth and the car runs fine.

one thing i thought of. the PO did put a new head on the car. im wondering if the new head was 'shaved' wouldnt that increase compression and thus increase CHTs? if thats the case im simply stuck with this.

still leaves us with possibly a bad AFM, that otherwise seems to be working
could this be fuel pressure (pump) related?

im not going to sleep easy knowing i ran the car on two gallons of a product i purchased at a paint store. im going to see if i can run through this other 10 gal of fresh gas by tonight to make sure all that junk is gone from my fuel system.

Like nynor said, ask to speak to the manager about running the car in 1st gear. Cant blame the guy for testing it for not wanting to do it as it is his job on the line if he gets caught. Just kindly explain that you are lugging the hell out of the engine running the 15mph test in 2nd gear due to how wide the gearing is on this car.

I bet you the car will pass in 1st gear with a decent margin.

That's not what this NJ emissions testing procedure document says: http://www.state.nj.us/dep/aqm/SubB5v2002-12-26.pdf

Look on page 9, paragraph 5. It states:

holy $*** Mask.... i will try this!

if your fuel pressure is incorrect, it will affect your mixture.

i am betting that with most cars, 15 MPH is more appropriate.

I will only state the facts and nothing further as to not self incriminate....
Times to inspection station, at least - 25
'discussions' with state workers - 3
Adjustments to AFM - >30
NOx down to 986 from 3300, 1323 passing
CO @ .98 limit .98 ;)
New sticker 1 :D

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e5...s/IMG_1732.jpg

Thanks guys ;)

So what did it? Or did it 'pass' :D.

lol it 'passed' ;)

NJ inspection
 

So, are we to assume 1 st gear solved the issue?
I failed early September with NOx 1521.
Rob

well first gear helped. At the state facility they ran it in first, after MUCH discussion, and got it within 5 units of passing. At that point I figured the techs were just failing the car to just prove a point cause they knew I was doing the work myself. The test can be stopped at any time during the window even if the tech got passing numbers, they can still terminate the test while the car is out of parameters, ending the test is subjective within a window. Once they failed it within 5 units, I made no changes drove it directly to my friend, he put it on the dyno, ran it in first at 15 and it got a 900. Magic?! The whole experience and dealing w those ppl was just very unpleasant.

Xylene helped a lot but was subsequently run out of the system. Fqs didn't seem to make much of a change. Adjusting the afm is what got it to pass.

what made the biggest one time difference without making any adjustments was adding a gallon of xylene to about 5 gallons of total fuel. You can get the stuff at any paint store. Its scary adding it to the car but it really got my NOx down. im not sure that i would try that again myself. the car really ran great with the stuff in there, but i would imagine if its kept in the system for an extended time it would not play nice with components.

The personal side of this, i guess i just really wore out my welcome at the state facility. I was making very minor adjustments to the AFM, and bringing it right back in. They are not familiar to dealing with that, the whole station knew the car and they could really care less, its the NJ way... nothing personal.

From what i could tell is the adjustments made to the AFM were NOT liner.

Thanks Kevin, I'll start there.
Rob

rob, u may have better luck, when u unplug the 02 sensor it should allow u to adjust the afm, my readings after more than a minute or so never reflected what u were 'supposed' to get. I can see if I can get u the position of my afm screw. I'll report back.

also, to rule out your cat, your O2 readings *should* be below .3. although my cat is fine, and ppl everywhere (outside of this forum in real life) kept saying it needs a 'factory cat'. I would often make adjustments to the AFM and would get 02 readings as high as .9 or higher. With this final adjustment the 02 readings was zero (or too low to read i guess?)

I installed a new cat & sensor about 4 months ago so I hope that isn't it. I tried a universal cat 1st, but burned it out within a week and had to replace it with a better quality one at significantly more money!
While I have all these experienced & technical minds reading this maybe you guys can help me with another issue I'm experiencing.
I've been having some hesitation first thing when driving the car when the engine is cold. Once warmed up not so noticeable. It has been mostly in 1st, but sometimes it will occur in 2nd if I change the gears to low. Started back in June or July so I doubt it is cold temp related. I give it gas and it sort of sputters like in the old days when you didn't give the engine enough choke? (dating myself aren't I) I have tried changing gas stations & added Textron a couple of times. I even had one of those fancy carbon clean outs about 2 years ago. Nothing seems to do anything. Wondering if I'm looking at rebuilding the injectors or fuel rail? HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN THOSE ITEMS NEED WORK?
I also have been living with the gas smell from the back so maybe I have a pump issue at this point. I assumed it was the usual hose at the filler cap and figured I'll get around to it sooner or later, preferably later. I did replace the gasket around the pump because the old one looked old and it was easier than taking the filler line out.
Anyway, any thoughts on where to go next would be greatly appreciated!
Rob

Rob,
i would start a new thread, your issue is pretty common, the guys here will be able to help you trouble shoot it better given its own thread, will draw some more lurkers rather than those who have already been bored by the rantings of this thread... ;)

i would hook a vacuum gauge up to the motor see what its pulling. ive been told 18-19" Hg is normal. it sounds like you have a vac leak. Im not sure about the early models but the late 944s have an ISV under the intake that regulates the idle when its being controlled by the DME.

there are a few things you can do to troubleshoot this. but before we go further i would start a a new subject....