Mar 19, 2009 01:00
I have thoroughly enjoyed smoging my car this year! Not. After spending an initial $89.95 (with a $20 off coupon) at a local "Test Only" station, my car failed the smog test three times. BTW, I have a 1989 Chevy Camaro IROC-Z/Z28 5.7. Before I took the Camaro down to the "Test Only" station, I changed the timing from 9 degrees BTDC to negative (14) degrees BTDC. I figured this is where the timing needed to be in order for the car to pass. (I have a Crane cam that has a little bigger lift and duration than the stock cam.) It passed at this timing two years ago with a new cat and the same cam. The guys at Crane told me (14) BTDC is where the cam opens up and it should be set at this degree. Of course, the car wanted to fail the test this year. After it failed the test the first time, I brought the car home and called up my buddy who owns a auto repair shop to get his opinion on where the timing should be set. He looked it up on All Data and said it should be set at 6 degrees BTDC, the stock timing. It doesn't matter if I have a cam that is a little bigger. BTW, it is a 50-state-legal cam. As I was about to change the timing, the idiot smog tech down at the "Test Only" station calls me up and tells me that my gas cap is locked to his machine and he can't do any work until I come down there with my key to unlock it. He forgot to take it off his machine and screw it back on my gas filler! I drive all the way down there, get it, and then come back home. By then it is late on Friday. So I wait until Monday to reset the timing.
Monday morning comes along and I reset the timing. I take the Camaro back down to the "Test Only" station to retest it. It failes a second time because the timing is actually set to 0 degrees BTDC! Like an idiot, I forgot to disconnect the ESC (Electronic Spark Control). It has been two years since I have adjusted the timing. Terrible memory I guess. So that's $30 down the drain. I go back home and disconnect the ESC this time, and set it at exactly 6 degrees BTDC. I drive the car back down to the "Test Only" station. The Smog tech can't retest my car. His connection is down with AT&T! Arrrr!!! I am not happy! He tells me to come back in a couple hours. I come back two hours later. There are five people ahead of me now waiting to get their cars smogged. After waiting 47 minutes, he finally gets to me. He retests it again. The car fails again. The smog tech informs me that he will not retest the car again unless I have a work order to show him. (I told him before hand, before the thrid retest, that if it didn't pass the third time, I would take it to a shop to have the car looked at.) After telling me this, I told him that I could have taken it to a shop where they would have retested it for free. I was being nice to him by bringing it to him each time and wasting $30. He didn't have anything to say in return.
So I took it to a shop. They found out that the cat is bad. I forgot that high flow cat's only last two years. I am having a stock cat put on now for $375 plus an hour labor. Hopefully, it will last more than two years. The shop that I have the car at now, says that they don't think that they can even put on a high flow cat legally. Interesting. The car nows seems to be passing the smog up to 25 MPG, but after that the hydrocarbons seem to go up. They are trying to figure it out. They did say that the EGR is not killing the engine when disconnected. They said that it is working though, but not great. I did replace the EGR two years ago. I hope this isn't the problem! It is not easy to replace! I'll keep you guys updated with the future results.
-Leo
automotive