HC is Hydro Carbons emmisions isn't it????......HYDRO "water" Carbon is Carbon. It is basically unburned fuel. Try hotter plugs, make sure you use good high octane gas and like I said if you put alcohol in the tank make sure it isn't already mixed with water. Maybe try a bottle of octane boost. Some of those products are nothing more than alcohol and some are actually other chemicals that will allow a more complete hotter burn.
David, where in Arizona are you located? I take my Mav to Jake's Auto Repair in Peoria. He is an honest guy and will treat you right. His shop is located at 10824 North 96th Ave...phone 623-878-5801.
I have ford racing 9mm wires, new cap and rotor and new plugs, and a mallory HyFire 6AL control module so I should have enuff spark. I thought higher octane creates a slower burn and resists spark thats why you have to run it in high compression engines... I usually run 91 octane but today for this test I ran 87 because of what I read on other posts here. btw I live in mesa and work in Tempe and go to school in phoenix...
i used denatured alcohol last year and it made my emissions even worse. raise your idle up to 1500 rpm and let it stay running and get hot while your waiting in line. it will work!
If it continues to fail won't they give you a waiver? I think they used to do that if you could prove, using receipts, that you tried to do the necessary work to get it to pass. Just a thought. Update: here is a link that talks about the waiver process. http://phoenix.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=phoenix&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gordon-darby.com%2Fcgi-local%2Fwaitupdat.pl Scroll down and click the waivers link.
Waivers are one time only, for the life of the car. Don't get it, you wont have it when you really need it. Sounds like you got a lean misfire. If you have a hot cam in your motor, its going to be tough to get it to pass. An old boss i had had a chevelle 454 ss with a performer rpm package in it. What he did was set inital timing a 0* TDC, pull off vac. advance, pull off one end of the power brake vac. hose, and kick the idle speed up. It worked for him, but if done wrong, you could get a lean misfire.
in arizona you have a free test within 30 days from the failure.. if your HC is up that high and your CO is that low.. it is lean just not hot enough to burn off the excess HC (raw fuel) you need to put your idle at about 1500 rpms for the test and get yur engine nice and hot.. drive it around.. let it idle while you are waiting in the line DO NOT GET THE WAIVER your timing is not set right as well. if you arent sure.. take it to one of the shops that are right next to the emissions places.. and ask them what it would cost to get your HC down... show them the fail notice.. and ask them i had a friend who had the same problem one year, and they charged him 35 bucks to adjust it.. passed with flying colors. i am certain that your timing and idle need to be adjusted.. nothing more..
failed 5 times now... although I got it below double, this time I increased my idle air/fuel (making it richer) and set my idle speed to about 1500 rpm or so with 0 degrees... the emission place I've used the last two times dosen't have any places around it... now that I had to get some gas my alcohol/fuel base is messed up so now I have to figure out if I want to add more alcohol again to accomodate the added fuel and then I think I might have to put my origenal jets back in... I went from the 300 to the 298 for one of my previous test... thanks again.
by the way how does timing effect HC? with alcohol and may be with out... if I incress above 0 with alcohol a little will it decrees or incress HC if anyone knows... thanks.
None of the adjustments that you have been told to do work all alone. If you have a slightly rich mixture then advancing the timing can lower HC levels but if your mixture is a bit lean it can increase them. Alcohol tends to lean the mixture and if you are already running lean it will raise the HC fast. The car needs to be reset to baseline stock settings. Only then can you modify ONE thing and test. If you do more than one thing at a time you don't know what is happening. Fix any vacuum leaks, tune the engine to stock settings. then you can test it. If it fails then back the timing off a bit and retest- if it gets worse then go the other way with the timing and test it. if it gets better then go a little further and test it. If it gets worse set it back where it was and lean the mixture. Test THAT change - if it is better then go a little more and test it. If it gets worse then set it back and do something else. Test it after each change so that you know what each change is doing. Keep records of what you do and what the results are. Each step - that way you can return it to the way it has to be to pass the next time.
I should of done that from the beginning... I need a shop who can hook me up to similar equipment and tune it their instead of make one adjustment then drive back to the testing facility... btw make that 6 times I've failed...
As long as it's burning fuel and not misfiring... The leaner it is and the more you advance timing, the hotter it will burn. That drives down HC (a product of poor combustion) and CO (a product of rich combustion) and drives up NOx. Setting the timing at 0 may have worked for one guy on one engine, but it doesn't make much sense. I set initial timing at 8-12 degrees BTDC for normal operation. To breeze by emissions you can set it up to 15-20. As long as they don't floor it, it shouldn't detonate. Leave the vacuum advance hooked up. When you have high vacuum, your dynamic compression is in the mud and the fuel won't hardly burn. That's why the timing advances, so it has longer to make that slow cold burn. Total advance at idle and part throttle should be over 30 degrees BTDC. Turning up the idle could move the throttle blade into the transition slots and screw up stuff even further since you're off the idle circuit now. When the exhaust manifolds or headers start to glow at night that's when you know you've got that idle nice and hot and lean. For big cams, your dynamic compression is even worse, that's why you get that lumpy idle. It's misfiring randomly. That's also why big cams tend to like a little extra static compression. The same thing applies for emissions, just keep advancing timing and leaning out. You just have to do it more with a bigger cam. The other thing you can do to help out a big cam is advancing it 5 or 6 degrees.
