Gerard,
Overheating will definitely raise the NO component of the exhaust. Anything
that lowers the combustion temperature will reduce the NOx output. Problem
is that they have to "warm the car up to operating temperature" before
performing the checks. An ethanol rich fuel should help, anything you can
think of to lower the compression ratio will help the NO, but hurt the
hydrocarbon emissions. If your cat conv. is in good shape, you could handle
the additional HCs created as you try to drop the NO. They are supposed to
verify that the timing is "in range", so that rules out the old trick of
retarding the timing for the day of test and putting it right back when you
get home. You should, however, be sure that it is set at the lowest
allowable amount of advance when you are tested. I took a class on all this
stuff 30 years ago, but now three of my four cars are EXEMPT. I may switch
the Austin over to bituminous coal just for a giggle.
Glen
> Well, time for my biennial SMOG check here in Kalifornia. If you
> don't already know, last year they implemented a dyno into the
> process and added NO gasses to the test. All my other reading were
> extremely low, but I failed on NO (PPM) max at 15 MPH is 791 and I
> read 965, at 25, max is 730 and I read 908. The odd thing is my car
> overheated in the process (which it has not done in two years, ever,
> and I'm wondering of that could cause the problem. If not, does
> anyone know what needs to be corrected to drop this number?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> Gerard
> --
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