i have an 86 camaro. it does not have the origional motor in it, but better yet something that will kick me in the *** when i mash the gas. anyway. i have a full exhaust. headman headers w/o the air tubes. a y-pipe. a catco high flow cat and a dynomax 3" catback exhaust.

ive recently tried to get my car to pass inspection, but without luck i have not been able to get it to pass. my HC and my CO are slightly too high.

today i heard that new york state raised the test limits last year, and having a high flow cat compared to a OEM cat with most likely get me to fail. has anyone heard of such a thing?? if it makes sense, could someone reply and tell me it makes sense so i dont feel like im wasting my money!

 

IIRC, too much HC and CO means that its running rich... try leaning it out a little or kick up the timing a bit.

 

im a state inspector down here in texas, adam is right for the most part, about the high flow cat question, itll work just fine, the car should work better with the new cat than an old stock cat any way, fix the fuel delivery and or timing, check tune up related items, the key is to make sure you are burn all of (or as much as possible) the fuel going in to your motor.

 

What induction do you have?

I went through the inspection/testing for the first time with the mods in the sig in Nov '03. I had done the mods to the otherwise stock LG4 in Nov '01 just after having passed that round. It was cleaner with the mods, including a high flow cat, than it was before.

But, before I went through this last time, I did a full tune-up (plugs, wires, cap, rotor, O2 sensor), and had a carb kit in hand in case I still failed. I also hooked up the A.I.R. again, having left it disconnected and capped in '01 (too lazy to reroute the hoses with the headers vs. stock manifold tubes until I had to).

Cuss it all you want, A.I.R. does help lower the readings. But, I would have failed visual without it, anyway.

 

I have never taken an emissions test but when I move to Texas next year I will have to. Exactly what happens if you fail the test? Do you get to just take the car home and try and fix the problem? Can you take the test as many times as it takes? Do you have to pay a fee each time? Do you have a time limit to get the car repaired?

 

SYPHON556, if you fail here in Texas, you get a print out of the reasons for it, tint too dark, brake problems, & so on for the safety part of it. failing the emissions part, you get a print out with the actual readings of your car & what they should be. there is a visual part to it also, things like egr, air pump, fresh air duct, hot air tube. some places may notice if something is missing where other places won't. if your sticker is out of date, you can & probably will be given a ticket by the police if stopped, having the failure slip more than likely won't help you. once you have failed either the safety or emissions part, you have 15 days to make repairs & return to the same station for 1 free re-inspection, if you fail this time too, the the next inspection will cost the same as the first 1, $39.50, also with 1 free reinspection.
not all of Texas has emissions testing as part of the state inspection, yet.
it seems like most people who live in an area with emissions testing come in at the start of the month instead of the end now.
i don't know if there is a limit on how many times you can try or not.
you can repair your car yourself, but, if its for an emissions failure, only the parts related to making repairs to the emissions part will count toward the wavier, the same goes for if you take it to a shop that is not certified by the state to do emissions repairs.
when you get to Texas, you will need to get your car inspected & passed to get the form VI-30 so you can get your Texas tags & your title done.

 

i have knocked the timming back as far as i can, so that the gas will keep burning into the exhaust. similar to stock timming at about 8 degrees btdc, i ran the timming at about 2 degrees btdc. to help me test results. and it helped alot. i went from failing all limits by at least three times the allowed limit to just barely failing. when i failed horribly before i had the timming at 16 degrees btdc. i have aluminum heads. anyways, i cant lean the carb out, cause it the stock computer controlled carb. it determines the fuel mixture by using the feedback from all the sensors. i need help!! a wiring diagram of all the sensors would help or the could someone tell me what sensors would directly effect the fuel mixture would be great. my car is orgionally a 86 z-28 with the lg4 motor. thanks

 

z28crazy, the limit/actual numbers would help.
list CO, HC, CO2, O2, & NOx if possible.
the main sensors for fuel control are, coolant temp, O2 sensor, map sensor & if used the air temp.
what temp does the motor run at? too cold & it won't go into closed loop.
check for any vacuum leaks.

*EDIT*
Trickster may have posted the diagrams that match your car up somewhere on the boards for someone else. if not, im sure he will if asked.

 

Mine failed when I got it, twice. It was running rich and failing all three, with the HC almost double (second test suspect: they failed the car for emissions, but all emissions were below limit ).

To get it to pass, all I did was change the O2 sensor and the plugs.

The O2 sensor wasn't in the best shape.

The plugs didn't look too bad, but I hadn't installed them so I don't know if they were gapped properly. I didn't bother to check the gap as I was replacing them anyway.

I can't think of anything else I changed, hope these 2 suggestions help.

And the limits (which AFAIK haven't changed since the beginning of the year).

 

just as a referance, my 86 LG4 sport coupe (stock except for flowmustard muffler and edlebrock air cleaner) got

Co - 0.00% (permissable is 4.5%)
hc 32 ppm (permissable is 1200)

this is @ 128 000 miles, in excelelnt health.

 

if you have the CCC q-jet there are a few tricks you can try. There is an idle air bleed, rich stop, lean stop and idle mixture control screws. You must remove the carb for the idle screws if you havent knocked the plugs off them already. At the top of the airhorn there is a small plate held in with 2 rivets that must be removed for the idle air bleed and one plug to get to the rich stop i believe. I am pretty familiar with this because i got my 383 to pass before i went to fuel injection. the idle air bleed can be tweaked to lean out the idle (small adjustments!) and you can crnk down the rich stop to limit the fuel the computer can add. I wouldn't reccomend driving like this but it will help pass emmissions.

 

A properly tuned CCC q-jet is the best way to get through emissions. The bad news is you eliminated one piece of that system that works to reduce emissions.

Although you don't have A.I.R. tubes on your headers, you can still run it to your cat. Put it back on, get everything set properly on the carb, set the timing properly, and assuming the tune-up parts - plugs, wires, cap, rotor, coil, O2 sensor - are in good shape, you should pass.

 

a lot of the newer cats don't require air injection to work, that doesn't mean it won't help though.

 

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