Emissions Failure - Will additives work?

philboy

Hi,

I'm completely useless with cars and need some advice. My car 98 Honda Civic iLs Coupe failed the NCT today on emissions. It failed badly on emissions previously just over a year ago. I haven't used it in a year & started fixing it up in the past month, I replaced the Lambda sensor and got a hole in the exhaust welded and It reduced the emissions significantly. I've been reading about additives such as 147+/redex. Im wondering would these work on my car with the following emissions results considering it hasn't really been driven in a year?

Engine/Oil Temp: 80 degress cel
Low Idle (0 rpm): CO 0.77%vol
HC 0 ppm

High Idle (2770 rpm): CO 0.59%vol
HC 16 ppm

Thanks,
Philboy

philboy

Anyone?

ak51535

catalytic converter may be faulty....is there one fitted?
If there is i'd replace it,
either that or your air filter is bankjaxed, thats the few i could think of
hope this helps

Muckie

Found Diptaine to be very good on emissions.
Clean the filter, spark plugs(clean or replace).
Oil change too before the test. Could only help.

JHMEG

I don't memorise the limits... what are they so that we can see by how much it failed?

B11gt00e

Muckie wrote: »

Found Diptaine to be very good on emissions.

+ 1

derry

Engine/Oil Temp: 80 degress cel


Re - philboy
your reading
Low Idle (0 rpm): CO 0.77%vol max allowed 0.30
HC 0 ppm max 0 ppm

High Idle (2770 rpm): CO 0.59%vol max allowed 0.50
HC 16 ppm max 200

my reading from memory susiki swift 98 1000cc 3 cyclinder engine 40K miles

Low Idle (0 rpm): CO 0.01%vol max allowed 0.30
HC 0 ppm max 0 ppm

High Idle (2770 rpm): CO 0.03%vol max allowed 0.50
HC 10 ppm max 200

Whats interesting is that your engine is better for CO when its runnning fast and the HC is zero when ticking over and seems low when going fast which is a good sign

I suspect you didnt have the engine nice and hot before doing the test

Me I take the car for a burn in low gears a few days before the test to blow out carbon deposits .The day for the test I leave the car on tick over for a half hour to get it toasty hot and then drive to center in low gears revving the crap out of the engine close to red line.When I get to the test center I leave the engine running all the time while waiting for the tester to collect the car.
Its good to bring the spare key so if you have to leave the key with the reception that you can keep the engine running to keep the heat up .
The hotter the engine is and the hotter the cat is the better the results will be.
Most stone cold engines will fail the NCT test as the cat is too cold or the engine is to cold fuel burn badly and the figures are bad .
Then adding the aditives can help a few days before test to blow out the crap.

I got my reading super low using the fact that my car although not a flex fuel car would run on E85 a ethanol alcohol fuel content of 85% alcohol 15% petrol
Some guys who have a CAT that is broken tune the engines to run on E85 fuel and can pass the test without a CAT.
This is because the ethanol alcohol fuel is simple hydrocarbon type fuel and burns cleany inside the engine and doesnt form the CO molicules and very little unburnt hydrocarbons HC exit the exhast .
Petrol is a complex hydrocarbon fuel and some of it doesnt burn properly inside the engine so the unburnt fuel exits the engine and the hot CAT then burns up the unburnt fuel .

Cars tuned with E85 fuel and no CAT will it seems from NCT tests have a absolute zero CO reading which confuses the hell out of the NCT testers who then test the car with another CO tester as they think the CO testing machine is broken.

After the car with the broken CAT leaves the test center I presume they retune engine to run on petrol again.

I wanted to get super low reading but not zero reading so as to avoid the zero emmission issues

I chose to put 25% of fuel in the tank as E85 and then 75% of the fuel was petrol.I also added the additives and another small amount of Colemans petrol.This ensured I got some very low reading but I was close to the limit as in 0.01% any lower is 0.00%

THIS info below is at your own risk if you try it out

My information is that most cars especaily non injection will run with 50% ethanol alcohol fuel without needing any adjustments . I tested my car with putting in 10% E85 on one fill and then 20% E85 until eventualy the car tank was 100% E85.
My car would run but not nicely on 100% E85 but 70% E85 was OK and the cheaper fuel saved me money even with the drop in MPG from Ethanol Alcohol fuel.

Some people buy the flex fuel convertion kit that will allow most any car to be Flex fuel but that costs something like 600 euros but those cars probably have no trouble to pass the NCT emmisions using 100% E85 fuel

I suspect a 20% mix of E85 in the fuel will make even some very sick cars pass the NCT emmisions .Too much E85 has problems as the fuel burns much colder than petrol and therefore it takes much much longer to heat up the engine and the CAT.

I also found that there is a super clean fuel called Colemans fuel cost some 9 euroes a half liter or one pint roughly in camping shop O Mearas Crumlin. This petrol has severe risks for cars if you dont know what you do.This fuel is for campers carvan cookers and is pure petrol so it burns very cleanly and doesnt leave the black stuff normal petrol would leave on a cooker .
Again a CAT would maybe not be needed with this type of fuel as the fuel burns so cleanly .However the fuel burns extremly hot so would cook the CAT as the CATS cant take too much heat and would melt the engines valves and too much would drop the octane of the fuel too much and maybe cause severe knock .
It was the original car petrol they used in the 1920 era which had low compression before they made petrol more complex to work with high compression engine .
The reason I mention this is to do with Octane .
Ordinary petrol is about 94 octane .
E85 fuel is about 104 octane .
Colemans petrol is about 70 octane .
If you add 20% E85 to 80% petrol than the octane of the fuel will increase from 94 to say 98.
If I then add say 2 to 5% Colemans fuel to the mix the 98 octane fuel should drop back down to closer to the original 94 .
Now the engine tuned correctly to run on 94 octane fuel will be getting a super clean 94 octane fuel which burns much better than the fuel we get from the garage.

Another solution is order in racing petrol from the UK which is a super clean mix fuel type that burns much more cleanly but cost something like 20 euros a gallon not including postage which can cost something like 50 to 100 euros a gallon as it is HAZMAT

So before the NCT test I run the car take down to the last gallon and then add the Colemans fuel.
MY reading showed so low I figure I am on to te solution that can get a sick engine past the test done with all the other tricks

For your case I suspect that there is some minor tuning issue which if you fix that and then run the engine to get it nice and hot and keep it hot you should pass the test as most of the reading were not so bad .
However if the car is high mileage with oil blow past the pistons keeping the oil level on the day of the test as low as possible will help keep the HC ppm low as possible but I dont think thats your problem but a cold engine might mask that and then get worse when engine is very hot . if the car burns a lot of oil per 1000 miles some aditives for the oil can help and some guys who know their onions have been known to keep the oil sump below the proper level for the NCT test as the car isnt exactly stresed during the test but its risky you need to know what your doing for that and I dont for one go there myself

If you got deep pockets no problem to pass the test just employ a mechanic to sort it.However if funds are tight then basics are

1 /
Replace or clean spark plugs and clean contacts and ditributor if its not eletronic ignition.
2 /
Verify the fuel is clean and no water in the fuel lines.buy the best petrol from a big gargage where they refill frequently as some small stations can have staler petrol which has higher water content .
3/
If possible get a service but failing that get the engine tuned up or failing that tune the engine yourself or failing that check the engine choke isnt stuck on all the time .Some guys the day of the test remove the air filter as that can act as a cock on a sick engine but its risky as the dirt can eneter the works so most rove the filter within a short distance of the testing center .A dirty or old air filter can also act as a choke and replacing with new filter can somtimes help

4/
Replace the fuel in the tank completly with clean petrol if the petrol is old as that stale fuel mixxed with good fuel can really screw up the reading Additives can help remove crud on the fuel pipe works

5 /
For very sick motors if you know what you do adjust the fuel types preferably several weeks ahead to verify what works and watch out that the alcohol fuel doesnt take any water in the tank up to the engine as thealcohol fuel soaks up water like a sponge .Very old cars for leaded petrol possibly cant do alcohol due to issues that the rubber cant take alcohol but most modern cars have no issues with that .
If you got it then put in some racing petrol but maybe not 100% in case the engine doesnt take to it so start with 20% and the increment in 10% units until its close to 100% .If the engine doesnt like it so pre just add some more ordinary petrol to get back to where engine ran good before

Keep the car and CAT very hot for the test and then You increase the chances to pass the NCT emmissions test

Keep us posted how you get on

Derry

philboy

I needed to get a new Catalytic converter. I didn't replace the faulty lambda sensor in time, the engine went into save mode and was producing a rich air/fuel ratio. This caused the converter to run hotter than normal and melt damage the material inside it. An expensive lesson for me, so for anyone else if your oxygen/lambda sensor goes, get it sorted straight away or you'll be having more serious and expensive problems down the line.

The idle speed control valve was blocked and needed to be cleaned. Also the back box was very rusty and had a crack in it so I replaced that too. Its running great now. Thanks for the replies.

Muckie

Thats great news, hope your trouble free for ages. Happy
motoring.

amschip

I have his problem.
Anyone can shed some light.
All seems to be fine except incredibly high co emission.

Low Idle (820 rpm): CO 0.13%vol max allowed 0.5
HC 0 ppm max 0 ppm

High Idle (3100 rpm): CO 2.83%vol max allowed 0.30
HC 161 ppm max 200
lambda 0.912 allowed 0.97 to 1.03