ddub

Original post:

"Alright, the last owner of this car unhooked the air pump and put a pre-silencer in instead of the cat, now ive just gone and put in a whole new exhaust system and i have rb header to bonez high flow cat to y-pipe to dual mufflers with 2.5" piping all the way through, the air pump IS hooked up to the cat and everything, but i just went to get an emissions check to make sure i was passing and they told me it was HORRIBLE and i was running way too rich... my question is why and what to do? does timing have anything to do with emissions? cuz i advanced my timing a little and was wondering if that was part of it, i didnt advance it all that much so i dont think it would account for all of it.. but what should i do? any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated as i dont want to burn up my cat cuz im running too rich, plus i have to pass emissions this year... thx in advance"



Update:

I changed the spark plugs but didnt change the wires cuz I have magnecore 10mm racing ones so i figured they'd be fine, cleaned the intake filter (k&n), changed the fuel filter, oil wasnt very old so left it, changed 02 sensor and then before the test I drove home from school for about 30 min, left it idling in the driveway for 5 min, drove on the freeway for 20-30 min, got off, drove to the emissions place another 10 min and then got tested. Weird thing is, though, is they had me turn my car off to do a "gas cap" test even though they had a sign saying "for better results leave your car running the whole time." And then I had to start it up again a few min later to take the actual emissions test.


Old results before changing stuff:

Idle: CO% - 4.2 HC - 1800
Cruise: CO% - 5.4 HC - 680


New results after changing all the stuff listed above:

Gas Cap Test Results: PASS

Cruise Limit: HC - 160 CO% - 1.1 CO+CO2% - 6 O2% - N/A RPM - N/A
Cruise Emissions: HC - 136 CO% - 0.11 CO+CO2% - 15.61 O2% - 0.04 RPM - 2970
Cruise Result: PASS PASS N/A N/A N/A

Idle Limit: HC - 220 CO% - 1.2 CO+CO2% - 6 O2% - N/A RPM - N/A
Idle Emissions: HC - 1346 CO% - 5.4 CO+CO2% - 17.5 O2% - 0.04 RPM - 790
Idle Result: FAIL FAIL N/A N/A N/A

Final Result: FAIL



Ok what's going on? I did everything suggested except the TPS, so should I try that now? Will that really pass me at idle? What's even weirder is that if you look at my idle CO% from the time before I changed all that stuff i got 4.2 but this time i got 5.4? How come I did worse? Btw, while I was taking the idle test at the end after the cruise test, I let it out of gear into neutral and just let go of the clutch and everything and it was bouncing around from 680-880 and about half way through I put the clutch in to get it to stop (dunno why it was doing that, normally is perfectly steady at idle) and it sat strong around 750 the rest of the time. I dont think that could have caused the whole problem with failing though. Now, I also have a TII fuel pump, could this be my whole problem? I was told I should still be able to pass with it? I dunno... furthermore, I'm going to be getting an Apexi S-AFC soon and them am getting it dyno tuned. Now I can do 2 settings for it, the power setting and then an emissions setting. If for my emissions setting on it I just tweak the idle to be as lean as possible for say 0-500 RPM and 500-1000 RPM should I be able to pass after that?


Any ideas and help is greatly appreciated.

1987RX7guy

iTrader: (3)

Time to go buy some alcohol dude.

Six Rotors

iTrader: (17)

You need air into the exhaust ports--it normally enters thru the ACV.

Sideways7

iTrader: (7)

Theres a number of temporary tricks posted on the forum. I dont know them off hand, but you should be able to find them by searching.

SpeedFreak03

Yea alcohol is the ****, it lets all my beaters pass emissions .

ddub

Im not going to put alcohol into my gas tank, I'd rather have a properly running car than having to result to that.. At least with the S-AFC I wont have to put crap into my gas tank

jon88se

change your thermostat to a factory mazda piece, i believe the ECU runs even richer with aftermarket thermostats since is sees lower temps, I'm not positive though. check for vacuum leaks and set the timing to STOCK. make sure the cats are real nice and hot before the test...rev it up for a bit to get the temps up

ddub

I'm not sure if the thermostat is stock or aftermarket, timing is stock (changed it back a while ago) and i drove a bunch before the test, but i guess after the gas cap test i can rev it a bit when moving to the testing part for idle and cruise

SpeedFreak03

But I've heard that those bonez hi-flos give people trouble passing emissions. So your car could be (and prolly is) running fine. You could always take it to a dyno and find out (they can tell if ur running rich/lean or not and if you have an SAFC they will tune it for you). But for cars like my 86 benz that are just OLD, alcohol works wonders to keep that bitch on the road (cant wait for it to die so I can get a TII)!.

ddub

And on the other hand I've heard that the bonez high flow cats are great and ppl pass easily with them.. Also, I'm getting my car dyno tuned by a shop when I get my S-AFC in, so they will tune everything, but it will be for performance... hopefully an "emissions" setting will help too

ddub

bump? any more ideas or input?

Templeswain

Yeah.

Maybe you think i'm a complete idiot for wondering why you have the airpump hooked up to you split air pipe from the Cat.

But I still think that may have something to do with it.

If my memory serves, which it may not, I remember people doing this specifically for producing flames out of the exhaust.

But I donno. Maybe someone could confirm that. If that's the case, your problem may be here.

ddub

The airpump is supposed to be hooked up to the cat, this pumps air into the cat and helps with emissions

Templeswain

Hmmm. okay.

Let me take some pictures so that I know we're talking about the same thing.

Okay took em all, so you can see why I think an air pump hooked up to the cat is weird.

Got to upload.

Tsunami

what kind of alcohol are we talking here? where to get it? how much?

and once im done, how to siphon the gas out? I dont know much about this, never done it. Is it life threatening to hav eit touch your lips?

im gettin my t2 without any emissions equip and it probably doesnt have a chance in hell of passing either way :/

J-Rat

iTrader: (2)

Okay dude, your HCs are WAAAAYY of the charts. These are idle readings so your O2 sensor has nothing to do with them. I see your Cat is new, so I assume the air pipe from the ACV system is hooked up to the cat.

few things possibly wrong... First off, recheck your TPS. Then I would look at the ACV and the initial idle mixture settings. (might want to check your timing also, couldnt hurt).

Do you know what the variable resistor is? If so, does it look like its been tampered with? Also, there is a trick that will cause the ACV to pump air to the the cat at all times, this keeps the oxygen flowing to the cats to speed up the catylist. To do this, you locate the upper 2 vac lines on the ACV (they are right next to each other, and the nipples point up). You remove the foremost vac line (the one closest to the front of the car). Cap it off...

J-Rat

iTrader: (2)

There is a write up in the FAQ that I made for this.

Templeswain

okay below is the airpump. The hose connected to it, I'm pointing to, is connected to the ACV..



This is where that hose connects on the ACV:



The inlet that I am pointing to in the picture below is where the split air pipe comes from the cat and is connected to the lower intake manifold.



Both s4 and s5 have this inlet on the LIM.

So that's why I want to know why you have the air pump going directly to the Cat?

ddub

i printed off the diagram from the factory service manual of where the cat is supposed to be hooked up to (if i remember correctly it was the split air selenoid valve?) and furthermore an exhaust shop is the one that checked this as well with mazda and hooked it up

ddub

thanks for the advice, ill check those. Yes i know what the variable resistor is, it does appear that its been tampered with, so ill check that, timing has been checked many times and is stock, and thats a good idea for the vac lines, ill try that too

Templeswain

it was the split air selenoid valve?)


Yeah, and that split air valve's hose hooks up to the LIM inlet I'm pointing to.

I've never hooked up the airpump and or cat any other way. Maybe the exhuast guys thought you wanted to shoot flames because every joeshmoe that walks into their shop is like: I wanna shoot flames....I donno.

But like I said. I have never hooked the airpump with a direct feed to the cat's split air pipe.

Do you have a digital. maybe you could share some pics of what the "exhaust" guys did. Maybe they got some crazy way of doing this.....I've never hooked up a "highflow" cat so maybe I just donno ****. Just seems weird.

ddub

I'm pretty sure its hooked up to the split air selenoid valve, cuz thats what the diagram said that i showed them.. and now they wouldnt do flames, they refuse to do anything thats illegal (not even a system without a cat) they're very strict about what they do..

and i dont shoot flames btw

Templeswain

Cool.

Well whatever it is. Let us know cause it seems to be a major pain in the ***.

Besides. If the exhuast guys hooked it up right, why wouldn't you pass emissions?

Where could I see this diagram?

Edit: never mind. I guess the diagram is off the FSM

Tsunami

alright good deal, what kind of alcohol?

does someoen have a pic of variable resistor? Sorry, new to Fcs

ddub

I dont know why im not passing emissions, thats why im here lol.... it was worse before with the cat, but then i changed the fuel filter, cleaned intake filter, spark plugs and O2 sensor and pass cruise, but not idle, now...

anyways, work in progress, ill try the stuff suggested this weekend and get retested next week