GJB928

CA Smog checks are always a PITA. I'm posting this to help others who live in the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Kalifornia). I've kept both my pass and fail sheets in my service binder for the past decade or so. It's interesting to see that the state continually lowers the numbers across the board we must achieve to keep our cars on the road. If I hadn't kept my old ones I would never have noticed this. Here is one from 2005 I think the standards retroactively changed shortly thereafter. The amount my car blew then as a pass was a fail 2 years later.

GJB928

Two years ago I needed smog again. The tune I has on the first attempt was a 951 Maxx chipset, 3 bar fpr and a factory CAT. This was a change from the totally stock 2005 test. Granted NO was high but the other numbers were below or close to the old standards. But still labeled as GROSS POLLUTER.

GJB928

Next I replaced the chips & FPR with stock, New O2 sensor and went in for my retest. Not much of a change but slightly better.

GJB928

Next I bit the bullet and bought a new bolt on exhaust system that included the CAT. It was labeled as CARB compliant. It passed but the tech pointed out to me that depending on the station, it could fail visual because there was no CAT on the wastegate bypass as is stock. So after having passed smog, I returned the pipe to Amazon and bought just a CARB approved CAT and welded it in. I'm not worried about the condition of the wastegate pipe CAT because it will never be tested in a condition where gasses will be flowing through it. As you can see I barely passed NO with a brand new CAT!

GJB928

Fast forward to present, I needed a smog check again and was worried that two years on the CAT might be a fail seeing how I barely made it under the NO number. I thought that I had some room to spare on the other numbers so I left the 3 bar fpr in. Hoping that it might richen it up a bit. Next I swapped in a new to me DME with a stock chip. I was getting tired of having to open them up to swap chips back and forth and it's probably tempting fate doing that to a 30 year old circuit board. I left the 951 Maxx ' KLR chip in place. Then I set the FQS to position 4. -3 degrees on timing. And lastly I added 8 gallons of E85 to approximately 8 gallons of 91 octane gas. Viola! Some pretty incredible numbers.

GJB928

I would love to know what smog numbers these cars had to hit when new in mid-80s. I bet they are forced to be cleaner running now then they were back then. Does anyone have a smog test sheet from early 90's

V2Rocket

one thing that affects the "max" number might be that you were in a different county for the first test. smog rules vary by county..

im frankly amazed that the car passed with the 3 bar FPR installed. whats interesting is that your O2% is 0 - it should be 0.1-0.3 for a perfect pass with the CO2% being 14.5-15. that means your cat is working overtime and using up all the O2 to remove the HC/CO. the retarded timing and E85 are probably what saved you here - good to know !

GJB928

V2 I'm always interested in learning, what do you mean by a perfect pass? What can be changed to raise O2?

Valkuri

I had some concerns about emissions testing on my cars in Illinois.
So, I moved to Arizona.
That solved it.

Humboldtgrin

Or move to and/or get an address in a change of ownership location. For those who don't know that means you smog it one time when you first register the vehicle in your name in California.

ried

So what you're saying is... half a tank of E85 helps dramatically.

GJB928

Yeah, basically.

mchrono

E85 burns very clean

bw993

Since you went with a 50% E85 mix, it's probably a good thing that you used the 3 Bar FPR. Otherwise, you would have been running too lean which would have increased your NO readings. E85 has 25% lower energy density than gas, but is 102 octane. Going with the 3 Bar FPR increased your fuel input by ~20%, which worked out perfectly. Based on your AFRs of 15.1-15.4 you were just starting to run lean at 2500 rpm.

spencang

I have used the chevron fuel injection cleaner with 1/3 tank of gas with great success. I took mine to TNT in Morgan Hill for the past 2 times with great success.