jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

One thing that emission testing does for an enthusiast: After you pass, you know that your car is working (pretty close) to correctly. That alone is worth the $40. The Vert gets 24mpg on the hiway and between 12 and 18 in town, so it is working the way Mazda intended. For now, that is enough for me.

After testing last year, I replaced the cat with a piece of straight pipe and stored the cat in the garage. I probably put around 250 miles on the cat before taking it back off. All year, my wife complained that I stunk of exhaust fumes after I drove the car with the top down. With the cat on, I never smell exhaust fumes even when stopped at a stoplight and the wind is blowing from behind.

I am going to leave the cat on this year. I cannot tell the difference in performance between off and on. After all, this 2-1/2" high capacity cat was rated for a V-8 of 7.8 liters and over 8000# vehicle weight. It is not choking the performance of my stock 13b.

The exhaust is a little quieter, a little more mellow. We will see if the cat holds through another season of driving. I expect to put about 15,000 miles on the car this year.

seadawg

I saw this while looking for info about shifter bushings. I've been pretty lucky in DE, because my daughter's 90 GXL has the original cats and mufflers. The baffles are rattling, but otherwise OK. The body of the car has 219k, but the engine was replaced at 150k.

I just give it a good tune up, change the oil, heat it up good with a quick trip down the Dover bypass, and hit the inspection lane.

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

Here is the annual update of my emission testing. This is 6 months late because I had the car in the garage for paint.

The cat stayed on all year and is holding up just fine, but I haven't put nearly so many miles on this year.

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

Here is my emission test update.

The cat is still holding up.


I did no prep for the test whatsoever. I haven't even changed my plugs this year. The car runs great. According to my emission test everything is well with my car...


Same time next year!

RandomHero

iTrader: (2)

Lookin very good. Is your air pump still hooked up? Odd that there was no oxygen left over at all. Have you replaced your cat before or are you running on the original dual cat setup? If so it's amazing that they have lasted to 150k.

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

Yes to airpump. no to the original cat!

You should read the first page of the thread. There is lots of good information in this thread. I update the thread every year after my test. The 'new' cat has lasted for 4-1/2 years. I have passed 4 times on the replacement cat.

There should be no oxygen left when the car is operating in closed loop. The test puts the car into closed loop.

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

So since you are trying to make political commentary, how bout this thought:

Out in your land of tree hugging, spotted-owl loving, tingle-running-up-the-inside-of-your-leg, crossdressing liberals, you get to pollute to your little heart's content. IOW, you get to pollute (this is too easy) 'Liberally'

And in Texas, we actually care about making our air clean by requiring our cars to run right. Maybe this is why the word 'Conserve' is the root of 'Conservative'.

Now, who has been watching too much MSNBC?

Just yankin' ya.

RandomHero

iTrader: (2)

Often I see that cars with air pumps end up with lots of oxygen left over, I guess the 13b just puts out enough left over hydrocarbons to use up all available oxygen from that split air, hehe.

Cats obviously mask underline problems sometimes, but when your cat lasts that long it indicates that your doin something else right too, having a functional air pump helps.

Fortunatley I'm a state inspector so I dont have to worry too much about emissions. .

HAILERS

I took to using E-85 on my 86na last year. I believe it was a 1/4 tank of E-85 and the rest regular. Frankly the results were no better/no worse than the year before using just regular.

This yr I'm going with 100% E-85 and see what happens. RTEK 2.0 used to compensate for the leaner mixture of the E-85.

Just a couple more yrs and no more emissions testing.........unless the law changes.

Cross dressing liberals with tingles up their legs. Heh, heh. Electric cars are close to useless. Wanna tow your boat with a Prius to Possum Kingdom and back? Ain't a gonna happen ever.

Notice that the first thing Toyota did last fall to stabalize their positon in the USA? Closed down the Prius plant they were building in the USA.

And while we're here, ALL Prius are sold under cost, always have been. It's their gimmick, much like GM selling their small cars at a loss to meet their CAFE fuel standards. The pick'um up trucks have been carrying the small cars for years.

Just a little hate speech. Just flows out of me. humor

Oh well, time for one more rant: anybody remember the Brownout in Austin a yr or two ago? Wind power in action. They get a mandated amount of their elect pwr from out west where the wind blows.......most of the time, but not all of the time. You need either a backup source of power (read coal powered plant) or a SMART GRID that can let big brother turn off the appliances in YOUR house to make up for the loss of wind power. That's what the SMART GRID is being created for. Power over YOUR use of power.

Scorch3

Bridgewater eh? I'm in Bedford... Its great having a visual emissions test, especially when a non OBDII car doesn't even need that.

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

Brother I hear ya. BTW, I have one of those 'Yota Tundras. Made in Texas. Big frickin' V8. I'm pretty sure I could carry two Prius (Plural should be Prium?) in the back and it wouldn't affect my mileage a bit.

You should hear me give my lecture on recycling and the incompatibility of various polymers found in our trash.

And Sustainability means we can afford it. Sustainablity is *truly* defined by the cost in $ less the Government incentives, dis-incentives and subsidies.

Take the 'incentives' away and wind generation, Ethanol, hybrid cars etc. all go away.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

my stock 68,000 mile (at the time) 87 gxl passes cali smog, the test was actually done on 12 year old fuel too

RandomHero

iTrader: (2)

^ Wow, lol. My car barely passed in cali with both original cats at about 100k. Right on the dot for the hydrocarbon limit. Of course this was like seven years ago. Texas limits are quite higher.

Dinnercoat

Are you running with any kind of pre cat?

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

No.

-jack

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

just got a 10AE with a really tired engine to pass.

RB 3" dp, new cat, airpump/acv

it barely passes @15mph (121hc, which is the limit), cleaned up fine @25mph (30hc's), so it passed

we checked idle and its like 7% co and 400hc, which if tested would fail horribly

Dinnercoat

What do you have in the space where the pre-cat goes?

clokker

iTrader: (2)

Al Gore's hollowed out femur.

ericgrau

iTrader: (1)

That would be illegal on Mazda's part if it were true. Dunno what the requirement was in the 80's but today they need to last 150k+ miles. I have 22 years & 130k on mine and no indication of replacement in my stack of previous owner receipts. Had better than average emissions the time before last, and almost average emissions last time. No where near the limit. According to the RP website an aftermarket cat like your autozone one will quickly cook on a rotary, but the Bonez is supposed to handle the heat. Now I'm hoping you just talked to an oddball employee b/c I was thinking about getting a Bonez myself. Removing or replacing the cat is the biggest place to gain power, btw. And if you never buy anything that costs a significant portion of the car's original cost, then you won't even buy gasoline (that'll cost about as much as your car each year, btw). Your car was just cheap; it's not a good baseline to compare to. If anything, you'll be spending more to fix such a car (unless you got lucky).

Also, smog test questions are covered in the FAQ
https://www.rx7club.com/showpost.php...06&postcount=4
Sure enough high HC, low CO, low NO = "run-in converter, tune-up, oil change."

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

Uh, I think you intended to contribute, really you did. Maybe after you sober up you could come back and try to make a little more sense. First try typing in complete sentences. Secondly, try actually crafting a paragraph with a topic sentence, supporting sentences etc so we can follow your train of thought.


Now, that said, if I follow your ramblings, why should you need to buy a Bonez cat? Your car *pristine* works fine.

I judge everything through the lens of cost/benefit. Anyone who doesn't is either a fool, a goverment employee or a trustfund baby. And I get to choose how what criteria I use to judge an expenditure. Maybe in your stupor, you failed to notice that this is a 4 year old thread. When it started, I had lots of doubt about putting *any* money into this particular car and the original post reflects that. If you don't agree with my (4 year old) rational, then stay the hell off my threads.

The car is pretty nice. Here are a couple of pics before paint and one after paint. The replacement Cat has been in use for 4 years. My choice to *not* spend +$300 on the RP cat was valid.

You should take your legal ramblings and cat discussion/disthymia up with Rotary Performance. Talk to Ari...I did.

Dinnercoat

You still haven't told me what happened to your pre-cat.

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

Pre-cat? I ain't got no pre-cat. I don't need no stinking pre-cat...

We don't have visual inspection here in Texas. Just a probe up the pipe, AKA the rectal exam.

If you go back and read, you will see that the car has a Bonez Superflow system on it. I replaced the cat on that system. No precat.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

I'm still trying to figure out how anyone can get 24 mpg on the highway in an S5 vert? I've got a '90 GXL and it consistently gets 22-22.5 mpg on the highway. It's got no precat and a Bonez main cat. I know I can tune it and do a host of other things but I don't see how you can get more stock. Especially with a less aerodynamic vert. What's the secret?

jjwalker

I get around 22 mpg highway and 10 street in my 90 vert. The vert isn't much heavier than the other trims. I also don't see how the GXL would be any more aerodynamic. The vert has the same windshield angle, same bumper, same underbelly. The only way I can see it being less aerodynamic is if you drive around in reverse at high speed, and besides, the spoiler on the other tims creates drag (purposely of course).

jackhild59

iTrader: (7)

I took a trip to Little Rock AR from Dallas a month or so ago, 350 miles each way. The plugs have not been changed in a year, the air filter could use a cleaning and I ran the air all the way and back. I drove the first 150 miles top down. I got 22 mpg average for the trip.