91, 350 TPI- It looks like a vacuum tube. It's about 1/4 inch, attatched to the throttle body and runs to one of those emissions things, ('thing' is black, looks like a ufo, center of the car, under the plenum, in front of the distributor. Just where you can't reach it...) (is that the egr?) The tube was hard plastic and it looks like it just snapped. Could this be why I failed emissions? I am going to take the car to see a mechanic sometime next week, and it would be helpful to know what it is.

Yes, Julie that is what it is and yes that is probably why you failed.
That should make it easy to fix the smog deal.

Hope so.

oops

Yeah that's a vacuum tube for your EGR, which is a major emission system for our cars. You could probably save a lot of money by finding the right diagram here on the board and replacing the tube yourself. You can pick up a replacement really cheap at any auto parts store.

did you fail for NOx? the EGR is one of the key players in that one.

On my car which is an '89 Iroc with the 350 TPI, There are two vacuum lines for the egr system. One goes from the throttle body to the egr solenoid which is mounted on the same bracket as the ignition coil by the distributor. The other one goes from the egr to the egr solenoid. Hope this helps.

The Trickster!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cool, thanks! Yeah I failed both. My Hc's were 146 (max 128) and the No's were worse, 2240 (max 828), There may be other issues. Could that egr tube also affect performance, or is the emissions completely separate? My car is not happy, but it might just be running really rich or something.

Yes, it will affect the performance because you have a vacuum leak present in the system.

The Trickster!!!!!!!!!!!!!