emissions high idle fail-solutions?

tomdempsey200

hey guys looking for advise

my trusty 02 1.3 liana failed on emissions as follows..

low idle
CO 0.10 vol% --- above 0.30 fail (PASS)
HC - 256ppm ----above 0ppm fail (N/A)

High Idle
Lambda 1.05 --- not between 0.97-1.03 fail (FAIL)
CO 0.6 vol% ----above 0.30 fail (FAIL)
HC 106ppm

---

above 200ppm fail(PASS)

i drove it full of dipetane like a maniac onto the ramp..


i done my bit of research here and am i right in thinking spark plugs,filter and
lamda sensor should get her through?

thanks for any feedback and she's not burning oil

bassey

Had the same issue with a micra I was putting through a few weeks back. New lambda sensor should do the job. May aswell do the plugs and filter while your at it as you say.

tomdempsey200

hi

did you fail on high lambda and co?

and did you get a generic sensor?


thanks again


i notice the revs seem high when i start the engine .would that be related to lambda?

George Dalton

The high lambda figure means it is running lean. That coupled with the fact you say the revs are high when you start the car would suggest you should start looking for an air leak on the intake system.

flutered

a shot of tinners in the tank should do it.

bassey

The micra was reving all over the place when left at idle and felt like it was about to cut out half the time. This was sorted when I put in an NGK Lambda sensor

jimgoose

The fact that you're blowing quite a bit of hydrocarbon and too much CO despite a very high Lambda reading would lead me to suspect a leak in the exhaust header somewhere forward of the cat.

tomdempsey200

mechanic had a look

no leaks on air intake or exhaust

new air filter fitted....spark plugs ok

thinks it may be the catalytic converter

dieselbug

He may well be correct, a non working cat will result in high reading of oxygen at the tailpipe and raised co at increased idle.

To test it properly you need to get it on an emissions tester and diagnostics capable of reading sensor activity and fuel trims. If you give your location someone may be able to help.

If the cat is gone you need to be sure there's not an underlying fault that helped it to it's death.

enumbers

A cat been gone would not cause the high lamda reading. a small exhaust leak possibly flexi etc may cause it.

tomdempsey200

ok i get it now


changing cat won't afffect lambda reading

derry

When E85 fuel was available a few years back in Eire we would modify the petrol car to run on it and even sickest cars could pass the emissions .
Thats because if you have very clean burning fuel like ethanol alcohol you can trick the emissions

There does exist a very clean burning petrol costs something like €5 a liter .
info of Aspens fuel at this thread
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=85889614&postcount=59

fromthreadboards wrote:

Liffey distributors are bringing in Aspen both 2T (red bottle) and unmixed (Blue) They are the agents for Husqvarna and lots of other outdoor equipment so nearly any small engine place should have it or be able to get it

No harm to change the lamda sensor
If it was me with my car I would run car until only three liter of fuel was in the tank and pop two liters of the good Blue bottle Aspens stuff in and with so much clean fuel the sick car would bound to pass the emissions . Your emissions are only slightly over the requirements .When we did it with E85 fuels we would put clean fuel in take the car for hard burn to heat up engine and cat so they are real toasty hot .Then we went to NCT driving in low gears high RPM .We would two keys with us go into the office in NCT hand them the first key and keep car running in the car park to keep engine and CAT hot .When mechanic comes out he would take car to the back car park where it would sit for 20 minutes .The hotter the engine and cat are the better the chance to pass the emissions and the cleaner burning the fuel the better . I got emissions with one of my cars with 30% E85 and 5% clean Colemans fuel so close to zero one time it was 0.01 any lower it would be zero .With the E85 trick we could get zero emissions and was fun to see them stick second sensor on thinking the reading was wrong and getting same results Zero emissions.



Then once we passed the emissions we would take our time to figure out where the problem is as emissions on the high side usually mean loss of MPG and extra money wasted in fuel so worth solving the problem for the next two years

I learn t the E85 trick from one Boards guy who passed emissions with a CAT that was broken

I heard a rumor that in UK they stopped the emissions test as the petrol and diesel fuels emissions are so toxic the EU regulations forced them to stop testing the emissions so unless the car was pumping out clouds of smoke they wont do emission tests anymore in the UK MOT
I Thought the NCT would have to follow the same EU rules and stop the emissions tests as the toxic fumes in the NCT centers would be killing the guys in there with stuff that creates cancers and make them have deformed babies
Derry