MadScience

If I read your first post correctly, your car is only subject to OBD testing and not tailpipe testing.

If that's correct, then you don't have to worry about any of this, but if you do need to pass the sniffer, make sure you get some good hot drives in to clean anything short drives may have left on the plugs. Then make sure you have fresh fuel (and not 3 month old, stale e10) . Finally, having it hot and keeping it running until the test will tip the odds in your favor if your cat is marginal (very important with some cars, less of an issue with others, from my limited knowledge I didn't think p-cars were troublesome here).

The OBDII only testing is actually nice since you can have a better idea if you're in good shape with a somewhat inexpensive tool. Of course you'll still have to pass visual, which strictly speaking many muffler mods don't.

vg247

Thank you- yes that's correct my car is only subject to the OBDII testing and no sniffer, etc....I've passed visual no problems there, the issue is the OBD from the smog shop came back with a "Catalyst Not Ready" reading, thereafter at the Indy and P-dealer their readings are saying "EGR NOT READY"... That's the mystery.

I've posted my smog read out a few post back for everyone's reference of the read out, post #24

Anyhow, I'll see what the dealer says tomorrow and take the car back home regardless and have to deal with this in a month once I come back from an overseas trip.

Appreciate your thoughts along with everyone else's who has provided their valuable input- somewhere along these posts is the solution and I will keep all updated

CrossThread

EGR, Evap, Catalyst not ready concerns on OBD II are frequent concerns and the first shop may have been right with their recommendations. The main thing to look for are failure codes such as P0400 - P0403 EGR failure, if there were no codes then it may have been as simple as taking it for a 30 minute drive on the freeway so the drive cycle could run it's course. The power train control module should monitor EGR operation by looking at several parameters and set a fault code if there is a hard fault. If your exhaust system was at fault one or more codes should have been stored in history.

The concern is that the car was not driven long enough into the drive cycle to run the test required to flag the EGR ready.

Just my .02

StormRune

I have an ODB-II link that will report the readiness status of these parameters. It is a little pricey but works well and can display codes and parameters for your car and any other modern car on an iOS or Android smartphone. Note that it reports Porsche-specific codes just as numbers and doesn't interpret them.

If all else fails, maybe you could get one of these and drive around until all of the sensors report "ready" then take it straight in for testing (hopefully without turning off the car!). Here is a link to the one I use: . There are others but I don't know which other ones display the sensor readiness status.

Dan@SharkWerks

Hi there -
I was on vacation but just saw this thread. I can suggest a few things for you.

A post-catalytic converter muffler replacement (bypass, standalone mufflers or modified mufflers such as Gundo) should have zero effect on the catalytic converter's functionality, and I've seen 100s of cars pass smog with no mufflers at all even. It is legal (by emissions standards) in all 50-states to replace a muffler. Sound level is different concern... I would think it's definitely something else, but can appreciate Porsche's concern for any modification to an otherwise original vehicle and I'd also want the car back to stock for warranty or diagnosing purposes.

While there's no certainty that your car doesn't have another problem (and the DFI cars are quite new still so I'm not an expert!)... your problem is likely one of these three:
1) you haven't driven it the drive cycles required to make the OBD2 ready
2) your catalytic converters or O2 sensors are defective
3) your car is modified in some other way (such as ECU software that changed something else)

For #1 - once the battery is reset, the car usually has to go through two full cool to hot drive cycles and cool back down. IE - start the car cold one morning, drive it 40 miles at different speeds/freeway. Shut it down and cool it down overnight. Repeat the following day. If you drive the car regularly and didn't recently replace the battery OR reset the OBD2 codes, this probably isn't the issue.

For #2 - We've had many customers with failed cats on the 09+ cars (and any previous NA Porsche), especially with track or hard use and driving. If you don't have check engine lights but the car never gets ready, it's sometimes still a cat or O2 sensor issue. It's an expensive item to diagnose/fix as factory cats are very expensive.

For #3 - If you're the original owner, you should know all that was changed on the car (headers? cats? software? These are the common culprits). If you're not the original owner, dig deep into the records or have someone that's familiar with ECUs read it out and find if any changes were made.

I believe anyone with a modified Porsche (or even any modern car with a few miles on it) should invest ~$100 into an OBD2 reader that tells readiness codes. It'll save you a TON of time in diagnosing any issue as you could just keep checking readiness yourself. Such as:

This is the one I like and it'll give you a GREEN light when it's all ready. If it shows YELLOW, the smog shop will likely give you the "NOT READY" failure.

ltcjmramos

Dan, Does a Durametric do the same?

Dan@SharkWerks

Yes, more in fact. It also has the ability to run the readiness tests and attempt to make any monitor ready without driving it.

vg247

Thank you Dan - I'm just back in town and did order the INNOVA above as suggested.... just plugged it in and nothing popped up other than the yellow light (which I presume is not good as we want the green light), just says NO DTC's etc.. .. .. I made an appointment to bring the car back to dealer Thursday, will keep everyone posted on the outcome shortly.

andy92782

FWIW, possibly related, possibly not, my dad experienced a similar type problem last year with his....2006 Saturn Vue, the one with Honda V6 engine in it. I can't remember the exact reason why it failed smog initially but it came down to the fact that he hardly ever drove the car (he's retired and they usually take mom's car). It didn't have enough cycles.

Sorry I don't have the answer here but I think the message is it's yet another reason for us to drive these things regularly and not let them become garage queens.

Philster

Often, the best course of action is to play stupid; it eliminates the first variable on the checklist.

Drive cycle you say? Then drive cycle it is. THEN, after eliminating the most common and most likely issue, you work towards more unlikely scenarios... such as a mod from the cat back.

Occam's razor. Process of elimination. Accepting an experts advice. Eliminating variables. All of it. Not to be confused with "getting ahead of yourself" or "cart before the horse".

dalancroft

Sharkwerk's website states its bypass pipes are "50-state emissions legal." I couldn't tell from skimming the overly wordy post whether the OP had done additional mods.

dalancroft

Yeah, unlike Texas we don't just wantonly blast carbon into the atmosphere.

dalancroft

1) Yes, more stringent.
2) Not necessarily depending on model & where they are built. For example, my mom in Washington State was selling her Ford Escape which would have been a fine ride for my growing family. However, it did not meet CA emissions standards so I had to pass.

When I first moved to California in 1981 for college, it could get pretty smoggy depending on weather conditions. Now it rarely does, unless we have a forest fire with the wind blowing in the wrong (east to west) direction.

///zhp04

Read this link:

http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/9...cle-reset.html

I used this with my 2006 C2S in order to get the ready light.

SpeedyD

Just for another data point, I just did NYS emissions inspection w/Sharkwerks + Fister and there were zero issues.