Unable to pass emissions test plus some smoke.

[Daston]

Hey guys n gals.

Trying to get the RX though it's MOT (first one since I have owned it).

The good news is everything is hunky dory apart from the emissions, which are way way out!

On idle the CO is around 9% and the HC are 2400pp. The pass rate is 0.2 and 200 so as you can see she is just a tad over lol.

The car is standard part from a catback exhaust and it's 2000 miles into a freshly built engine. One thing I have noticed over the last week is a definite puff of blue smoke on start up and my garage floor is spattered with black flecks which have come from the exhaust....not sure if this is normal (with the TVR I had this was a good sign that the engine was fubar).

Could it be something as simple as a dead cat? Or something more sinister? If I wasn't 300 odd miles away from the engine builder I would pop in lol.

[boosted]

what series car mate?

[jinx]

Mine melted the exhaust probe at its first post rebuild MOT with numbers off the scale.
1 bottle of Cataclean later it aced the test - deeply inside the allowed bracket.

[Daston]

Ah yeah that might help lol

Its a 1997 FD

[boosted]

You on an apexi?

[Daston]

The whole thing is totally standard, ECU and engine etc. The only thing that has been added is a cat back exhaust.

We tried running the car at just over 2k rpm on the fast idle to see if the air pump would lower the emissions, we got to around 6% Co and 300 odd HC. The weird thing was we held it at near 4k RPM and the Co dropped to 2.3% and the HC were around 160 (which is a pass).

I am a bit reluctant to start buying bits and bobs with the hope that it might work lol.

[boosted]

As jinx said mate cataclean first. I put it through all my cars and then see whats what.

[Daston]

Right just went out to double check the ECU and its deffo standard (was hoping for some kind of a surprise lol).

My garage has a lip to it which means I can't push it in so started it up and got the normal blue puff of smoke but this time it was way longer than normal and hung around when it started warming up too. Should I now be worried?? The warentee on the engine is up next month so if this is the start of an issue I really want it looked out now tbf.

Uh sorry for the shit camera skills, got to love modern phones

[Daston]

Cataclean turned up today (got to love Amazon prime...ordered it Saturday!) and chucked the bottle in.

She smoked for a good 15 min and then cleared up. A few blips of the throttle chucked a lot of white/blue smoke out and then that stopped too so looks like its running as it should. Going to get it retested on Monday and see if it's still out.

[Daston]

Right tried the cataclean and still running way too high, HC is still around 2200 and Co is 9% on idle

[boosted]

is the car running good?

limited info poss o2 sensor. with high hc and co......its running rich.

[boosted]

Ill have a word with my mate tomoz he is an MOT tester and knows the levels inside out and possible causes.

[Daston]

Seems to be running fine idles fine around 750rpm and drives perfectly. Smokes a bit on start up but runs clean when up to temp.

The tester seemed to think the Cat could be the problem but as they are only a testing station and not a garage they were unable to run any tests.

[boosted]

Spoke with my mate and sounds like running rich......in no particular order.
Plugs
Air leak/ vacuum
Lamda o2
Or cat.
Maybe time to get back to builders so they can take for mot for you.....check it over and rotary friendly mot.

[boosted]

Just re read your thread. And your 300 miles away from builder.....is this a rotary garage closer as there all well versed with getting cars through mots.