Yesterday I went to have my California smog test done and am now it appears I am
in Smog Check Hell! I tuned up my 67 series 5 using colortune and had it
running great! I talked to the smog tech about a pre-test to make sure it
wouldn't end up a gross polluter. He said it seemed to be idling great and it
shouldn't be a problem. he set it up temporaily on the machine and saw that the
idle emissions were fine. So he hooked it up for real and went through the
test. All of a sudden he got real quiet and I saw him pressing buttons on his
machine. He said it came up listed as a "Potential Gross Polluter" and that the
test could be completed but no certificate would be issued. Sacramento now had
my car on its "most wanted list" and it would have to be fixed and tested and
then brought to a referee station to be certified and then I would have to have
the test done every year instead of every two years. (if it passes at the
referee stations)
The last two times I passed this test using a weber after failing twice with
STrombergs. From looking at my last two passing tests it indicated that the
only test that mattered was the idle test for hydrocarbons and CO. Apparently
now the specs have changed because I failed on a high speed test that was not a
part of the previous tests.
Has anyone else had this happen? or Is my car to be the first Alpine "poster
child" for the Anti-smog II campaign?
I don't have any idea how to adjust anything other than idle adjustments. Any
help or suggestions would be appreciated.
I asked the technician if he could fix it. He said probably and then started
talking about replacing jets in the weber. Well I left it there and walked home
waving goodbye to my Alpine, wondering if I would ever see it again. Needless
to say not much sleep last night. I only drive it on the weekends and haven't
put more than 1000 miles on it each year for the past three years, so this is
quite frustrating. So far I have done all the work on it myself for the past
four years, learning as I go. But if the smog tech can't fix it, I fear I am up
against the wall,
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