Failed smog when I got it. Got a new magnaflow CARB catalytic converter put on today. Wish me luck tomorrow!!!

Question though. All my original cats, even the main where totally clean with nothing inside. Looks way too clean to have been hollowed out with a screw driver or anything.

Whats in those original cats? Is it beads or honeycomb of some kind? Is it all crammed in my muffler now?

 

One of the mono cats has a chain-link fence type of cat material which can blow out and into the one after it.

 

They are all clean as a whistle. Just hoping nothing's clogging the muffler.

 

Gutted a long time ago...

 

Failed! Miserably! Better than no cat. Hydrocarbons about 4 times allowed limit. Now gotta get it running leaner

 

make sure the ACV is in "port air"

 

I had a heck of a time passing our smog test a year back, so here a few tricks that helped me out. If all the emissions stuff is working correctly, that's good... if not, you can always 'hot-wire' things which is what I did since my emissions system and engine were not from the same revision. Make sure the ACV is working or is at least set to "port-air" like j9fd3s said. I just ran a vacuum line from a known source to where the solenoid would have connected and called it good. FB's don't have the trailing ignition cut off feature so you won't have to deal with it, but for SA's (at least the 80, I don't know if the points system has support for it) the trailing would shut off most of the time above idle which makes passing the 2nd idle test more difficult if you're not running a stock smog system. This can be gotten around by unplugging - note that this is true for 80's and don't do it if the smog system is stock because your thermal reactor will no longer do it's job - a two prong connector that runs into the ignition control box. It's the only two prong connector running in that area so it should be fairly obvious. Unplugging this disables that feature without affecting anything else. Otherwise just be careful with tuning the mixture. There is a point where if you go too lean, you actually end up with more HC's at the tail pipe. My smog station lets us go through for free as many times as it takes to pass so I just test and tuned it as I went. Another trick that worked for me is to temporarily run the vacuum advance at idle (it's a quick and easy way to temporarily advance timing without having to reset it all the time with a light). The car will usually run rougher but it cleans up the exhaust a little bit. For context, I was 19 times over our HC limit of 220 when I started (with no cat) and ended at 219 after adding a used, mostly destroyed cat and doing a lot of tuning and 'tricks'. Best of luck on passing. Many of these tricks assume that you don't have under hood visual inspection.

 

The ACV is next. I can tell the air pump is sucking air now just have to make sure it's getting to the cat. Thanks for the advice guys!

 

You don't actually want the air running to the cat - in the manual that's called "split-air". Rather you want the air going to a port in the center iron that connects to the exhaust, which is appropriately named "port-air". Air should really only go to the cat to on start-up or perhaps really cold days to help it heat up faster. Once everything is up to temp, that much fresh air on the cat will cook it, which is why the ACV should switch the air routing to port-air at that point. I can probably explain this better tomorrow if need be, or just look in the fsm - it's all in there somewhere.