Ok so i recently tested for emissions and failed miserably. the car is an 89 civic, lsvtec, PR3 with hondata, vafc.
The O2 sensors seem to be working ok (checked with DVOM), i have recently changed the oil, replaced the vacuum lines, and i just installed a NEW carsound cat yesterday.

here are my results BEFORE installing the cat. they set my GVWR to 4200 at this place AND ran the test without FANS. no i'm never going back.


1st try AFTER installing new cat.... 42psi fuel with vacuum on, ~14 BTDC, VAFC -8 everywhere, GVWR at 3110lbs


2nd try with new cat... only 35psi with vacuum this time and removed air filter


so i pass the high speed test decently but under the 50% load / low speed test, i fail badly.

can anyone spot these numbers and give me a good guess as to what may be bad please!

 

Hydrocarbons are typically cat.............................but I am not an expert...

Carbon Monoxide, not sure about that one. Elevated combustion temps I believe causes that to go up.

 

Is your timming advanced? if so retard it some.

 

Now to let you know i am no means an expert on emissions, but me and my buddy where seeing what the read out would be with my test pipe in place and the only test that I did not pass was the low idle emissions, everything else passed, so maybe check your cat? I got an obd 1 gsr

 

I was in the same predicament a couple weeks ago, failed due to HC, here's what I did to pass:

change plugs/wires/cap/rotor
techron fuel additive
beat the **** out of the car before emissions, and don't let it get cold.

Hydrocarbon is due to unburned fuel and low cylinder temperature, NO2 is the opposite- high temp. Notice that your NO2 is very low, but HC is high. SO you'll want to shift the scale a bit more to the lean side (w/ the FPR). Just don't lean it out too much or your NO2 will go up.

Hope this helps. ALso, ask the guy to not charge you unless you pass, this is what I did, and the tech worked his *** off to pass me.

hope this helps,
g'luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

I would check your TPS and MAP readings.... those two can really throw it off, you're running rich as hell at 15mph. Also check your fuel map in the Hondata.

 

By the looks of you test results, it looks as if your part thottle tuning is very rich (explains high HC and CO and low NOX levels) You may want to try changing your injector multiplier for the test or try taking roughly 10% out of your idle and part throttle maps. this should help .

Let us know how it works out...

 

i know how to solve you probs move to mn no emmisions

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hondatim &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">By the looks of you test results, it looks as if your part thottle tuning is very rich (explains high HC and CO and low NOX levels) You may want to try changing your injector multiplier for the test or try taking roughly 10% out of your idle and part throttle maps. this should help .

Let us know how it works out...</TD></TR></TABLE>

that is what bugs me so much. the numbers from before i installed the cat basically say that my car was tuned okay. with the new cat they are REALLY off. from what i've read, on the low speed test my AF ratio is about 12:1 in the second try. but on the high speed test the engine is doing pretty well.

right now i am running 390cc injectors with my hondata's injector multiplier set accordingly. i also had the guy who burned the chip for me guestimate the fuel numbers on the low side. not good enough i guess.

maybe i should have another "base-map" chip burned and switch back to my old 240 injectors...

thanks for your input everyone

 

something really stands out strange to me there. CO at 15 on youre first test is .69% which is not bad at all, and after the new catalyst is jumps up to 8.19% which is extremely rich. something changed drastically. also you most definatly have a missfire, that is the reason you have high HC. im not sure why you ever replaced the catalyst with a CO2 reading of 14.2% originally, which is better than with youre new cat. fist thing for you to do is find out why you are running very rich, at 8.19% CO you can probably see black smoke out the tailpipe and youre new cat probably will have a very short life. after you get youre CO down find youre missfire, take a look on an ignition scope and maybe take a look to see if you have any sticking injectors. but something dramatically changed, on youre first test you only had a missfire, on youre second test you had a very rich running misfire. find out why.

 

again, in regards to the misfire, I have to agree with bayarea13. are you running the Hondata with no O2 feedback? or do you have feedback to ECU from O2 sensor? also, are you sure that when new catalyst was installed that O2's were reconnected or that you don't have open wire or broken connector?

although this should set a check engine light.

again, may want to diagnose possible engine miss that's causing high HC and CO. If sure it's not an engine miss, then I suggest taking fuel out of the idle and part throttle maps and see what happens. you said that your low speed AF ratio was 12:1 (way too rich). should be closer to 13.8:1 to 14.6:1 at steady cruise at low speed.

just an opinion though...

also, you said that guy that burned your chip just guestimated on you fuel maps.
might I suggest actually getting vehicle tuned with wideband O2 on road for part throttle tuning and on a dyno for WOT tuning. again, just a suggestion...

 

thanks again for the replies guys

besides the CAT replacement i know that nothing has been changed since the last test. this has got me wondering too. its only been about 1.5 weeks since the first test shown.

i was wondering about the o2 feedback myself so today i actually unplugged the sensors and drove around for about 5 minutes. NO CEL! seems the chip is closed loop or my ecu is fugged. *stock PR3 chip with my old 240s will be tried soon when i can get my hands on one.*

as for the misfire, i'm just not too sure about this. with no load the engine does seem to sputter when holding the rpm above 2000, but under load there is never hesitation or bogging so i never payed any attention to it. just figured i was running too rich still.

the engine's CR is 11.5:1, i'm running NGK BKR7s, brand new distro. internals and rebuilt 390 injectors (recently). i know the MAP is functioning properly and i dont seem to have a vacuum leak. i've never tried running down a misfire before but where should i start?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you said that your low speed AF ratio was 12:1 (way too rich). should be closer to 13.8:1 to 14.6:1 at steady cruise at low speed. </TD></TR></TABLE>
yeah i get that. i figure 12:1 because of the CO%. 8.17% is about an 11.4:1 air/fuel ratio. the 6.7% CO reading figures closer to 12:1.

and yes i've been stuck out low on funds and 95% through my project so i never have had the chance for tuning. almost cliche isnt it.

 

the slight studder at idle could definitely be because of the extremely rich fuel mapping. it definitely sounds as if car is running in open loop (no O2 feedback). with Hondata, this disables O2 sensor and will not set CEL if sensor were to be disconnected. This could also definitely be the cause of the extremely rich issue at idle and low speed cruise. I don't understand why the ROM was edited to run with no O2 feedback. the only time we ever disable O2 feedback is for tuning only. after tuning is completed, O2 should be enabled so that O2 feedback will allow ECU to make small changes based on O2 readings so that mixtures remain correct.

 

may not be the best answer but lean it out. you will defently pass then

 

this is sort of back from the dead but, i finally got my lil' LS/Vtec to pass the TX dyno emissions.

after the last test i swapped out my DSM 390cc injectors for my old 240cc parts, pulled my Hondata stage 2 out of my PR3 and swapped my old Mugen chip back in to handle the 240s. side note - i thought my mugen chip was dead the last 3 times i installed it and this time, a year later, it works.

i left my fuel pressure at 35psi and then lowered my VAFC settings to -5 from 1k to 4k. i ran some Sea Foam through the intake manifold and put the rest into the tank. ran the car around for about 30 minutes on the freeway and then i stopped back by the emissions testing center to try my luck.

on the 1st try i had single digit HCs but my NOX were through the roof and my CO's were ZERO. seeing this we decided it was too lean so i set my fuel pressure to 44psi and raised the VAFC settings to +5 everywhere.

2nd try results showed my NOX at ~100 (1258 limit) but my HCs were in the 3 to 400s and my CO shot up. we went too far. so with this try we left the fuel pressure at 44psi and dropped the VAFC settings to 0 everywhere.

on the 3rd try, for the first time!, the emissions tests actually finished early. results showed HCs lower than 30 on both tests, COs at less than .12 and my NOX on the low speed at 1253 (limit of 1258)

4th try we left the settings and made an "official" go and the tests stopped even earlier this time. my HCs and COs at the same readings with my NOX numbers dropping to ~950 on the low speed test and ~450 on the high speed.

end result is that for the FIRST time since i pulled the stock engine (~August of 2000) its actually LEGAL to drive! i'm still in disbelief.

thanks all for posting

 

And I bet if you ran it on a perf dyno, it probably makes the most power it ever has as well.

 

If you dont have one, get A SAFC or in your case VAFC and take it to a dino and have them tune it on a wide band O2 sensor!

 

Good work sleeper. It's great to have some detailed info on how you passed your dyno smog test, as it gives us all a clue on what we need to do when it's our time to suffer...