i hate emmisions!

[The Dude]

it never fails. every year i have to take my truck to the stupid emmisions, and every year it fails. i dont know whats goin on. last year it failed everything so i did new plugs, wires, edelbrock carb, and timing and it still failed, so i turned the screws all the way down so it was barely running and it passed with flying colors! so this year i turned the screw down so it ran like crap, and it failed the idle CO. does anyone else have these problems or is it just me? i am so sick of it i told my dad to just take it to an emissions shop while i am down here at school this week, maybe they can figure it out.

[Dirty Dan]

Man, I hear ya. It gets harder every year. I take mine to a local shop that works on drag cars. They get it to pass somehow( without denatured alcohol sp?). Eventually I want to get an LT1, or better yet an LS1. That should make it better.

[BladeX]

Yeh i payed emissions times 3.

42x3 = 126 in just emissions

not to mention all the crap i had to buy to pass emissions.

[79BIG10]

The way I got mine to pass was an oil change and filter, cleaned air cleaner, new plugs, pcv valve, and tuned the carb with a vaccum gauge. Now before you get tested make sure your engine is nice warmed over. If it's running cold it won't help. You want your exhaust with a cat (if you have one) to be nice and hot to burn off anything before you get tested. I did all this and even with a HP engine I passed with flying colors.

[8t5Silverado]

I feel your pain.

I couldn't even get failed. I went 4 times and got the low CO warning.

If I simply failed, I could spend $200 and get a waiver.

Anyway, I got lucky in that mine is a new purchase and because it is an odd year (85) and this is an even year (04) I simply got a new plate for one year only without any emissions or safety test.

I am in the clear for a year.

After that, I might register it at my Grandpa's in the country.

[GMC 1500]

i feel sorry for ya'll. I don't have emissions tests where I live. im glad though because my truck puts off so many gas fumes you could blow up the whole state if you lit a match near it i don't think my truck would pass emissions

[BowTieMan]

I know im 15 and allready hate Arizona emissions. What size carb is on that motor? Could ya give me some more info on your stuff? Like year and if it is all stock or not.

[Grim Reaper]

I only failed emmsion 3 times in 10 years and once I should have failed. Of those three times twice was my fault.

Last one was my wifes honda. Just replaced a timing belt and forgot to plug in a Ambiant air temp sensor.

Fail before that was a bad plug wire on a different car.

Fail before that was a 79 K5 I had with true duals. It actaully failed the year before but the emmsiions guy screwed up. It had no cats when I bought it. Here in GA if you fail and then spend $200 in repairs then still fail if it's close and showed significant improvement then you can get an exempt for the year.

Well that truck passed the sniffer with no cat and no playing with. Dude did the visual and it had no cats but he mistakenly thought that it wasn't supose to have any and he could already tell it was passing the anal probe.
Whe he was pulling the tach lead he happend to notice the Catalist sticker on the core suport after he had put the sticker on it and processed it. He and I talked and I assured him I would get cats on it and explained I understood the $200 rule.

So the next year it got cats when the guy did the visual but it did pass the anal probe.


Let me let you in on a little secret.....your truck runs like crap.

Emmisions do almost nothing if the vehicle runs right. If you have proper fuel mix the cat is doing almost nothing. The cat is there to take care of minor poor fuel mxture problems.

Make sure your EGR is working properly and no cloged up passages. Change the oil if it has over 500 miles on it and you know it uses a little oil. Same with a general tune up. Change the plugs and cap if they have any big miles on them. Meter out the plug wires and make sure they are good.

Why the oil is important is if its dark it's from blow by. Well the PCV is going to suck up and burn crank case fumes. If that vehicle has been short tripping (running under 20 minutes and seldom on the hwy ) a lot then the oil has a lot of un burnt fuel in it. As the oil heats some of that is going to becombe vapor and it will effect the emmisions test.

Properly adjust the carb. Make sure the choke is fullyu dropping. Get you a vacuum gage. To adjust baseline fuel mix the trick is to make the engine pull the most vac at 600 RPM. If it's pulling the most vac it's running the most effeicent. Simple as that. Once you find the highest vac then give both mixture screws about 1/8 a turn lean. Should run great as long as there are no other problems.

Now the tricks for taking the test:
Here in GA the test stations are a drive up deal you don't get out of the car but at the last moement for the actual test. You guys being so close to the Socialist Republik of Kalifornia might be different. But her they don't do any cold starts. I also always run it down the hwy for about 10 minutes and make sure it's good and hot. Cats work with heat so if you come in with a truck that was only running 10 minutes I can just about guarantee it will fail for a number of reasons.

NEVER shut it down while waiting your turn. If it cools That may cause a FI car to go back open loop if the temp drops a few degrees. The O2 will also cool and even if it doesn't go open it may change fuel mixture. I infact drop into neutral and bring them up to about 1100 RPM to make sure they stay hot wheil I wait. Also some cars the temp at the intake where the FI gets it's reading rises. Well the ECM may think the car is leaning out and richen the mix to lower the operating temp. So let it idle to keep heat in the sensors.

With the above steps all my fails were easy fixes and were my fault.

[The Dude]

the truck has a year old 350 witha wiend intake and edelbrock 600cfm #1405 i think, well it is the emmisions legal carb. i have true duals with long tubes 2 1/2in pipes with flowmaster 40s. the truck is a 75 so there are no emmisions equpitment required. i just had the oil changed a week or two ago and the cap/rotor/plugs/wires were all done less than a year ago. the truck spends most of the time sitting in the driveway becasue it dont get that good of mileage so i dont drive it back and forth from tucson to pheonix, plus it wont fit in the UofA parking garages!
maybe i should have my dad drive the truck more so it gets driven more than two weekend a month?

[Dirty Dan]

When I walk behind my truck, I get light headed.:p

And for more thoughts on emmissions, see my sig.

[Russell]

We have no emissions testing here either. When I am stopped at a red light with all the vents and such closed, within a minute I can smell the rich fuel mixture in the cab... With the back window open, it takes meer seconds until I can smell it, this happens from cold to as hot as it gets.