A question about passing CA smog...

65ShelbyClone · Feb 22, 2006

About passing CA smog (EDIT: No more question)

I just got an '84 SVO, but perhaps against my better judgement I agreed to smog it. It was smogged about 9 months ago and didnt seem to have any borderline areas. However, I saw a part on the cert that says "Reason for Testing: High Emitter Profile." The results were:

15mph @ 1760rpm: HC: max 138, meas 136 CO: max 0.85, meas 0.57 NO: max 1148, meas 270
25mph @ 1850rpm: HC: max 113, meas 61 CO: max 0.65, meas 0.20 NO: max 978, meas 135

What would be the most effective way to help lower the hydrocarbons? The cat looks to be fairly new. The temp only comes up to about 1/3 on the stock gage, if that means anything. It also got new Autolite platinum sparkplugs recently. I presume the previous emissions were done on the old plugs which I also have and they are toast.

evintho · Feb 24, 2006

I saw your other post. Nice SVO!! First thing I would do is dump the platinum plugs. 2.3 turbos just love stock Motorcraft plugs (just ask anyone who's into 2.3 turbos). Do the usual stuff, change the oil, fill it up with premium, check your timing, vacuum lines, etc. Just before you bring it in for smog, wind it up real good on the freeway, pull into the smog shop and leave it running. You want that cat as hot as it can be! Don't they sell some sort of additive at Kragen or WalMart that's guaranteed to make you pass smog? Good luck!!

65ShelbyClone · Feb 24, 2006

evintho said:
I saw your other post. Nice SVO!!

Thanks .

I have concluded that the valve seals are toast and maybe the rings are weak. It smokes pretty bad on startup(esp hot startup) and a little oil burning remains all the time, hence the high HC. I'll do compression on it tomorrow and check the plugs. I was wondering about the platinums, though. I know copper plugs work just as well or better in most Fords, but do plats actually make emissions worse?

I looked for the emissions test passer stuff today, but AutoZoos around here suck and their stock/staff is different every week.

Instead, I went and got some 15w40 diesel truck oil, Motorcraft FL-300 filter, and a quart of acetone. The acetone is supposed to make the gasoline vaporize better and in higher amounts supposedly reduces HC emissions alot. If I can lower the HC by even 20 points with fuel alone, I'll be in alot better shape.

vristang · Feb 24, 2006

65ShelbyClone said:
The temp only comes up to about 1/3 on the stock gage, if that means anything. .

It does. It may be worth while to change the stat. You probably need more heat to get good combustion at test speeds.

65ShelbyClone · Feb 24, 2006

What was the factory t-stat temp? I let the car idle up to temp, then drove it around for another ten minutes. After that, I used an infrared thermometer on the passenger side rad tank and it said ~180-185*. The fan runs all the time, so I assume the controller burned up long ago.

I think I'm going to change the valve seals anyway and maybe ditch the platinum plugs.

65ShelbyClone · Feb 27, 2006

Ok, the temp comes up higher, but only after about a half hour of driving. Thats alright, though, since the smog place I got to is about 45 min away.

Other than that, I ditched the Autolite double platinum plugs in favor of 764s, cleaned out the IC, and cleaned the cap and rotor(they are both really bad). I also did a compression test and found out I have a soft #3 cylinder. The plug wires also have "1983" on them . To make things worse, the wires on the O2 were mangled and one totally broke when I pulled the sensor out. Resoldering those wasn't fun.

I think I may try a pretest tomorrow.

65ShelbyClone · Mar 3, 2006

I went and tried to smog the car today. Much to my shock, this is what happened:

15mph:
HC: Max 138 Ave 41 Meas 137....CO: Max .85 Ave .13 Meas .48....NO: Max Ave 399 1148 Meas 367

25mph:
HC: Max 113 Ave 29 Meas 84....CO: Max .65 Ave .11 Meas .27....NO: Max 978 Ave 332 Meas 249

Thats right, it passed. It passed by a whole 1ppm on the 15mph HC. It was blowing blue smoke during the 15mph test! Whew! I'll probably have a fresh longblock ready to put in by the time it needs another check.

Just thought I'd share!

evintho · Mar 6, 2006

Congratulations!! You're good until 2008! Just a thought. If you have a relative or good friend who lives outside the enhanced smog area down there, register the car using their address and you won't have to smog it again. I know up here in the Bay Area, 9 of the Bay Area counties are in the smog enhanced area. My brother-in-law lives 30 miles away in a non-enhanced county. If Thunderstang doesn't pass smog, I'm going to register it using his address. It should work!

vristang · Mar 6, 2006

evintho said:
Congratulations!! You're good until 2008! Just a thought. If you have a relative or good friend who lives outside the enhanced smog area down there, register the car using their address and you won't have to smog it again. I know up here in the Bay Area, 9 of the Bay Area counties are in the smog enhanced area. My brother-in-law lives 30 miles away in a non-enhanced county. If Thunderstang doesn't pass smog, I'm going to register it using his address. It should work!

Here in Seattle they are starting to catch on to this little trick, and since the gov is loosing $, they are taking action to make it tougher to do. I had both of my cars registered at my elsewhere when I moved to Seattle. When I used the Change of Address form with the Post Office, my registration address was changed as well.
It seems the DOT and Post Office are in cahoots now.

Congrats on the Pass.
Thanks for coming back to let us know how it went.

jason

4stanger · Mar 6, 2006

Wow! all that smog stuff really sounds like a pain in the drain. How often do you have to be tested? Here in Indy we don't have anything like that. heck we don't even have yearly safety inspestions. When I was in Texas they had the yearly saftey inspections, and since I've left I hear they have smog tests now. I'm sure it will come someday, local government will figure out there is money to be made. Congrats on passing

Vince

evintho · Mar 7, 2006

vristang said:
Here in Seattle they are starting to catch on to this little trick, and since the gov is loosing $, they are taking action to make it tougher to do. I had both of my cars registered at my elsewhere when I moved to Seattle. When I used the Change of Address form with the Post Office, my registration address was changed as well.
It seems the DOT and Post Office are in cahoots now.

Nah. I work for the post office. Once you file a change of address with the PO, that form goes into CFS (Computer Forwarding System). Your address is updated and any government agency that sends you correspondece (for up to a year) is notified of the address change. Kinda scary, isn't it!

65ShelbyClone · Mar 10, 2006

evintho said:
Congratulations!! You're good until 2008! Just a thought. If you have a relative or good friend who lives outside the enhanced smog area down there, register the car using their address and you won't have to smog it again.

Man, California started this whole smog Nazi hell....I don't know of any area that isn't in the "enhanced" jurisdiction. L.A. county is, Orange county, and so is Kern. I'm more or less on the border between L.A. and Kern, meaning I'm out in the sticks where smog isnt a problem.

On being good to '08.....that remains yet to be seen. I don't know when my SVO was actually due to be smogged; I just had to it do for the change of ownership. If July '06 is the next time it is due(outside of title change), I'll have to smog it again in ~3 months. I should have just non-opped it for a month so my smog test, which is good for 90 days, would carry over to registration time.

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