Well earlier today I went to take my newly bought FC to go get smogged in the intent of registering it today. Well I did the alcohal trick had it run for well over 20 mins so the catalytic converter would stay warm and run clean. As I was driving to the smog/emissions place I notice a little bit of smoke come up through he shift boot. Puzzeled I pulled over and looked under the car and noticed a crack in the exhaust(small crack little smoke). I said to myself well theres one thing to fix after emissions( I was alreaddy planning on swapping it out any ways). So I got back on the road went to the smog place and started the test. Well after 10 mins of waiting(btw this seemed to be the longest 10 mins in my life) I got my test results backed I failed...

I think it was that crack in the exhaus I saw. It failed all 4 tests. It really sucks honestly it did. Oh and when I drive around and i put the car in neutral ( coming to a stop) the rpms drop below normal all the way down to like 0-100 and dies some times. Could this be because of the exhaust too?

And 1 more thing. My mother was there to license her 2000 Mercedes C-class as well. She did the alcohal trick too. To only fail because of her gas cap was not tight.
Really I thought that was funny.

 

Why would your mother's Mercedes need the alcohol trick?

P.S. A nice tip ($$) to a guy on the "other" side of town usually works too.

 

A properly setup near-stock RX-7 doesn't need any magic to make it pass smog. It needs have functioning emissions components, and they need to be hooked up correctly. There's no mystery. Fix what's broken and you'll make it through without having to pay anyone off.

BTW, I normally wouldn't do this, but since you misspelled 'alcohal' in 3 different places (including your sig) I think you need to know: it's spelled 'alcohol'.

 

^ lol ^

 

You should have aborted going the emissions place as soon as you noticed the smoke.

 

What were your numbers?
From experience I can tell you emissions testing can be fustrating especially since you need specialized equipment to quantify what's coming out your exhaust pipe.

With out proper test equipment you are stuck guessing as to what the trouble is.
For instance, changing the 02 sensor, spark plugs and wires may help a little but may not be the root cause of your problem.

The main components in your emissions system are the Air pump, Air Control Valve (ACV) and the Cat. The ACV acts as a traffic cop to direct air to one of three different places either it dumps it, sends it to the Cat or to the thermal reactor and is controlled by the vacuum hoses and solenoids. Get the factory service manual available on line to check for trouble shooting proceedures and to get a better understanding of the system.

Other things you want to check are your timing and Throttle Position Sensor (TPS) setting.

My problem turned out to be a dead cat. I bought a new cat for my '87 from summit racing (www.summitracing.com) PN CTO 4689 for $174.34 .
It made a drastic difference I went from marginally failing to fast passing with Hydrocarbons in the low single digits.

Good luck

 

Just pay a lil extra to get a certificate like my friend did.. he didnt have to undo any modifications and he got his car registered... Oh and btw what would happen if you put tequila or vodka in the car instead of alcohol?

 

I dont think the car would like that very much... lol would be funny tho... well for the moment...

 

pay to get a certificate? whats that?

and i hope your joking, waste perfectly good liquor on your car, i mean i love my seven but unless im getting it drunk to get laid, the alcohol is for me

 

You would find wacky racer in the middle of the night tryin to siphon your fuel out.
Paying alittle extra to get a certificate will cos the smog station their license and a 50,000 fine, not a good thing. The cat is the major cause of failing the emission portion of the test. A good idea on all rx7's to ask for a pretest and pay extra to prevent it from becoming a gross polluter. rx7doctor