My Car is Failing Emission Testing .... Help!!

[NoOne]

Here in Ontario, we have mandatory emission testing for cars older than 5 yrs and up to 20 yrs old.

My car a 1991 Acura Integra (1.8 dohc) runs beautifully, quick starts, no hesitation or stumbling, good acceleration (for what it is). I took it in for the "E" test and it failed miserably (I'll post the numbers tomorrow when I have the paperwork back).

Having failed, I did the simple quick fixes: replaced air cleaner, replaced plugs (Bosch Platinum 2's), replaced o2 sensor, ran a full tank of premium fuel with a bottle of fuel system cleaner and even (at my wife's insistance) changed the oil ... I had changed it 2500km ago. It failed a second time, much better but not enough for a pass.

I went down to my friend's garage where we separated the exhaust for a quick look at the catalytic converter, it looked fine but he gave me a great deal so that was replaced, also added approx. 40 oz of Methyl Hydrate to the gas tank in the hopes of a really clean burn. Third fail.

Took it to a friend of his who is liscensed for testing, somewhere we could tweak it as much as we could. Unplugged an injector, which should add more "pure" air to the exhaust. Failed. Advanced then retarded timing. Failed again.

What we have noticed is it is failing in the "curb idle" section of the test and passing in the "steady 40km/h" part. This doesn't make any sense to me, am I overlooking something? Could the injectors be opening too much and dumping far too much fuel at idle or possibly all the time, this could explain my poor mileage ( I had thought it was just my aggressive driving) of approx. 480-520 km/tank .... how to test for this?

Any ideas would be welcome, thanx guys.

[Juggs]

my friend couldnt pass emissions once on his s-10...so he ripped all his smog stuff out of the truck and it passed with flying colors!

[NoOne]

my friend couldnt pass emissions once on his s-10...so he ripped all his smog stuff out of the truck and it passed with flying colors!

I don't think that would work here, it has to pass a visual first. I've really exhausted all my ideas and tricks.

[NSXType-R]

You know any friends at a garage that does inspections? If not I think you should make some friends!

[NoOne]

Fake/doctored tests run in the $250-350 range, but many places are reluctant to do this as it puts their license at risk should a spot check turn up something. Soon, the use of mobile exhaust testers - "sniffers" will be more widespread, this will probably eliminate the mandatory testing that is well known as a money grab for both government and repair facilities.

[d-quik]

I've really exhausted all my ideas and tricks.

oh my...

[Street_Dreamer]

oh my...

what he said ^

[Cyco]

oh my...

Noone does puns like he does

[h00t_h00t]

The back box fills with water and other stuff that makes it fail emissions. As far as I know there isn't a way to check if its full apart from removing it.

[johnnynumfiv]

^WTF?

Did you try the 02 sensor?

[d-quik]

Noone does puns like he does

this is too much

[SLoppYJeeP]

you could try to drive the car around before you take the test, this way the engine could warm up fully, this would probobly help it seal better and ensure that the converters and such are fully heated up.

[PerfAdv]

There are some vacuum related boxes on the firewall and for whatever reason when I had my '91 Integra smog tested, the mechanic found the lack of vacuum to be the problem. IIRC, he pointed at a box with vacuum lines attached.

Sorry about this vaque-ish reply but this happened many years ago and I don't recall perfectly other than it was vacuum related. As you've tried everything else, it might be worth considering/testing vacuum.

Good luck!

[Zytek_Fan]

If you can you could get some silt filters

[Vindesh17]

one of my friends couldnt get his car to pass, so I just hooked up my car to do the test and gave the guy $40 and that was it.