My B16A has been failing emissions at idle, though it passes the driving test by a large margin. It has almost 5X the allowable idle emissions. After taking it to a local muffler shop for a new oversize catalytic converter and quick tailpipe sniffer test, the guy's comment was "It's running so rich that it's off the meter's scale".

The car really runs great when it's warm though the idle dips a bit at times when coming off the throttle and it self-revs between shifts. The cold idle sucks ***; it tries to stall all the time and generally sucks.

Any ideas?

 

maybe your idle air control valve? Did you ever mess with your adjusting screw on the tb?

 

He's replaced the IACV, and has been playing with the idle screw to get it to idle, because it wouldn't idle well and stall before.

 

did you disconnect the iacv before you adjusted the screw?

 

He says that if he disconnects the IACV, nothing happens, if he tries the idle with it disconnected the idle will not stabilize.

 

maybe you have a vaccum leak somewhere? You should also check yout throttle body gasket and intake manifold gasket.


[Modified by Panda EK, 12:47 PM 4/8/2003]

 

I've replaced both the TB and IM gaskets a while back when I replaced the head gasket. They were torqued at that time. I've checked the TB nut torques and they're correct, but haven't yet checked the IM torque specs... so hard to get to it I'll try doing that though.

 

I have the exact same problem as you do. We got the car on a dyno, adjusted cam gears but the car would still run incredibly rich at idle and it high rpms. I also had that idle issue, I had the entire throttle body and fast idle valve cleaned. The throttle body wasn't dirty, but the fitv was. Afterwards the idle problem when the engine is cold isn't too serious anymore. It no longer stalls, although it still dips down to around 400 or so. But I'm still running rich on idle, waste of fuel

 

FITV is the thingie on the firewall, right? ( for me)