Just failed inspection here in NJ. According to the printout my hydrocarbons were a little high at 1.21 during the 2500 rpm emissions test. First off, they were clueless about what they were supposed to do, didn't know if it was a rotary engine, kept trying to use some sort of scanner to determine rpm's which didn't work at all, it kept showing up as 0 rpm's.

Anyway, the plugs have about 4,000 miles on them over the past 2 years and 3 months and the car does end up sitting for a bit between runs. It was about a 15 minute drive to the inspection station, so I probably should've driven a bit more prior to the test and I probably should've changed the plugs prior as well. But hopefully it'll pass with the new plugs, if not I'll try the denatured alchohol trick next!

 

Look normal to me, but I doubt plugs will show you anything about emissions.

 

I was just wondering maybe if they could show if I was running a little rich. Found something online saying "Carbon monoxide is formed when the fuel mixture is rich and there is insufficient oxygen to completely burn all the fuel. The richer the fuel mixture, the greater the quantity of CO produced. "

 

Looks like you got some lean spots and on the lower left plug really really bad carbon build up.

 

The HC is a measure of unburnt/incomplete burning of the fuel. The CO would be the rich or lean measure of the mixture. Personally it could be a lot of things but I would replace the plugs and 02 sensor. The plugs can't hurt your cause and the 02 is a important trim input for the ECU. Often when a 02 fails it can't produce the higher voltages which signals a richer mixture to the ECU. If its skewed this way the ECU may not know to what degree the mixture is rich and only correct a portion of the fuel trim needed. If the mixture is rich enough to produce a 900mv charge of current and the 02 is only stating around 700mv it could make a difference. This is just a stab in the dark surely there are any number of possibilities.

 

I took the car back in this morning to get the emissions re-done. All I did was change the plugs and drove it about 30 minutes before going in and this time I passed!!! Although they did it a little different. The first time the kept the rpm's up at 2500 and this time they just stuck the sniffer in at idle, never revved it. The paper they gave me still said it was a 2500 rpm test, but I'm not complaining, now I'm good for 2 more years!

 

[QUOTE=94rxrob]First off, they were clueless about what they were supposed to do, didn't know if it was a rotary engine, QUOTE]



Point to the sparkplug locations and tell them it's a horizontally mounted, valveless, V4.

Dave