Hi,

I recently tried to pass smog in CA, and ran into a predicament. I have a ported motor, intake, down pipe, HF cat and a cat back. I recently disconnected my air pump, but i have now connected it again for smog purposes. I did a pre test at first, which said that I passed everything except the CO at 30 mph which was .06 away from passing. Later that day, I took my car to a shop to get an actual smog test done, and this time, I only passed the HC at 15 mph, and brutally failed everything else. I am wondering what the reason for such drastically different results can be. Could it possibly be my O2 sensor?

Thanks,

-Daniel

 

I dont expect a ported motor will pass a legal smog test. Having the intake, down pipe and a HiFlo cat just makes it worse. In addition California restricted their smog guidelines as of April 2010 that my 2 cars with smog legal modifications that passed on March 2010 did not pass when I sold them last month.

 

I have tuned a street ported motor with no EGR to pass emissions before using a smog sniffer so yes they can pass. Are you fully warming up the cat before testing? Getting the cat stupid hot is extremely important to passing emissions.

Also, you shouldn't run with your air pump disconnected unless your tuning the car. Doing so will clog your cat over time.

edit - I'm actually not 100% sure about the EGR part as it was a while ago

thewird

 

I have my ASE L1 cert, which, at least in PA, allows me to repair emissions-related failures. I need to see your numbers to get an actual diagnosis. High HC is running rich. If you're failing in other categories, the numbers will tell me where you are as opposed to 14.7:1. Ported motors are very hard to get to pass with engine upgrades. When i run my car, i don't put it as a rotary, i put it as a 4 banger. this way, when the ignition pickup is reading rpm, it allows the engine to actually run higher than the set range for testing. Since ported motors have such slow air velocity at lower rpms, the air/fuel does not fully combust giving off a lot of emissions. get your numbers up here and i'll try to give you some suggestions

 

P.S. In order to alter the test, you would need to know someone that runs the emissions test. I get to do it myself on my own cars ;-)