1989 Festiva failed emissions, 2x the NOx limit! Now what??

[mikewilliams818]

Long story short:

I deliver pizza. Needed a more economical car. Found this one in a neighboring state. Upon picking it up for 700$, I was told it "burns oil" so I would need to keep a watch on it. It is Fuel Injected.

Went to get plates for it, failed e check, so now I have 30 days to figure out my options.

Readings: HC FAIL, reading was 292ppm, limit is 252
NO BIG FAIL, READING WAS 3548PPM, limit is 1877

I ran a bunch of seam foam thru the crankcase and fuel, but not yet thru the vaccuum line. Replaced all the spark plugs (1 was badly fouled, 3 were fairly dirty). Replaced PCV valve. Bought "Guarentee to pass" bottle of liquid.

I also have a small oil leak that apparently has coated half of the underside of the car, it seems to originate near the bottom of the crank/alernator area, next to the oil pan. The oil pan can use new gaskets too.

The exhaust system seems pretty new, although sometimes I hear a rattle and am not sure if its the Cat that is broken inside.

My gut tells me it may need a valve job as per the oiled plug and 3 dirty plugs. My gut also tells me a new cat wont solve the problem because the new cat probably got ruined by the oil burning problem---root cause coming from the engine I think.

There is blue-ish smoke upon starting and 1st takeoff usually.

I feel like a piece of crap right now as I feel I threw away my money. I also wish to not dump any more money into this. Or should I? My buddy even said the one control arm looks badly rusted as it may come right off soon..


ADVICE please!!

[JohnGunn]

I think I can offer you some hope in passing the emissions test.

When my '90 Festiva failed the California SMOG test I bought a new, California State certified, catalytic converter for about $300 to get it to pass. Before I could put the new cat into my car I learned of a state program to get older cars off the road. I applied and was accepted and was given $1,000 for my Festiva which as worth less than half that amount.

After removing my old cat getting ready to replace it with a new one, I looked into the input pipe and saw that the comb inside was coated with a brown glaze. Looking in the output side revealed no such glaze. It occurred to me that removing that coating might restore some of the functioning of the cat.

On the Internet I came across an article which said that citric acid had been used to successfully restore a defective cat. Here is a link to a report of that article.

http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=1737

Out of curiosity, I decided to clean my cat using Simple Green to see how that would affect my test results.

I poured a cup of Simple Green into a sink with enough boiling water to cover half of the cat. Then every 15 minutes I would turn the cat over to soak the other half. I did that for about two hours. Then I rinsed and let the cat dry before reinstalling it. The next day I took my Festiva back to the same test station for a retest.

While the improvement was significant, it was not enough get me to pass. Perhaps, if I had used more Simple Green and/or a longer soak time, the results would have been better. Or if I had used the critic acid recommended in the Internet article, it might have been enough to pass.

While I'm fairly certain a new cat, much cheaper than my California approved one, would get your car to pass, the experiment on my failing cat proved to me that the functioning of a cat can be significantly improved by cleaning.

Here are the results of my two tests, plus one image containing both results for easy comparison.

Before Cleaning:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/WlkBznWN5OjjGTVF3WbcKWwWC7p-W0yIKXIkkhQsxDg?feat=directlink

After Cleaning:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/9XlSOdOocTgHKjQVsGSNGGwWC7p-W0yIKXIkkhQsxDg?feat=directlink

Together for Easy Comparison:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/8OP3EnqqvZ9mrPgBPV1Ms2wWC7p-W0yIKXIkkhQsxDg?feat=directlink

Since your fuel injected engine does not have an EGR system to abate NO production, the only part of your car to do that is the cat itself. But the catalytic converter doesn't burn the NO gas it just captures in and stores in in the cat. Eventually it becomes saturated and is not able to capture NO gases fast enough and they escape out the tail pipe.

Here is the link to one of my posts on this subject from a while back.

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showpost.php?p=334288&postcount=20

Read everything you can find about NO at the referenced www.smogtips.com site. This is a must read for you.

This seems a bit scattered to me, but if you take the effort to figure out what I mean, it will help you.

John Gunn
Coronado, CA

[bravekozak]

guaranteed to pass

You should have poured some "Guaranteed to Pass" into your gas tank before you went for the test. I tried it and it works.

[mikewilliams818]

So no one thinks that it has anything to do with the engine burning too much oil (the oil slipping past some gaskets, seals, rings, etc and will inevitably fail the next cat i would put on it)??


Thanks everyone so far....

[Occhty]

Another trick, here in Missouri only the bigger citys require the smog test. Yet you can go to any DMV, so here you leave the city, drive to a small town, have it inspected there as they only check for smog equipment, not the readings, then get the plates in the small town too. Then your good to go.

Other states may be similar

[Festiva Time]

My '90 Festiva [Phoenix,Az.] failed like that and "Guaranteed to Pass" did nothing! Neither did having my fuel injectors system flushed for $400! I bought a new MagnaFlow Cat, which is designed to bolt right in [way to go!] and all my emissions dropped more than half! Go with their Cat is my suggestion.

Cleaning the Cat is really an interesting idea. I wouldn't clean them in my sink because of the toxic contents!

-Kirk

[JohnGunn]

So no one thinks that it has anything to do with the engine burning too much oil (the oil slipping past some gaskets, seals, rings, etc and will inevitably fail the next cat i would put on it)??


Thanks everyone so far....

The level of NO is related to the heat of combustion in the combustion chamber. Your FI Festiva has no mechanism to counteract that, unlike the carbed Festivas and the Aspires which have EGR systems. It is true, your unprotected cat will gradually loose its effectiveness, but that is true for all FI Festivas. If your state tests the NO level, it's just a matter of time before you have to clean, or replace, the cat.

Incompletely burned gas and oil contribute to another evil exhaust gas, called HC (hydro carbon) in California. But that's not the test you failed.

John Gunn
Coronado, CA

[Pu241]

Cleaning the Cat is really an interesting idea. I wouldn't clean them in my sink because of the toxic contents!

What toxic content?

[Pu241]

.........
Since your fuel injected engine does not have an EGR system to abate NO production, the only part of your car to do that is the cat itself. But the catalytic converter doesn't burn the NO gas it just captures in and stores in in the cat. Eventually it becomes saturated and is not able to capture NO gases fast enough and they escape out the tail pipe.
.
.
.

John,

Normally your advise is well founded, as is most of your original post above.
However, the cat converter used on the festiva is a three way acting device:
Oxidation HC to CO2 and water
Oxidation of CO to CO2
and
Reduction of nitrogen oxides (there are several of them) to Nitrogen and Oxygen gas.

The converter does not store these nitrogen oxides except in the sense that it holds them on the catalytic surface until the reaction is complete.

I suspect, but have never performed the operation, that getting the cat converter up to temp, 500+ C, and forcing air straight into the hot cat could well burn-off any organic coating that has deactivated the catalytic surface.
It will do nothing if it has been deactivated by sulfur compounds.
The down side is that if you have a lot of carbon it could over heat the ceramic support and melt the core making it pretty much worthless except as scrap.

[Pu241]

The level of NO is related to the heat of combustion in the combustion chamber. Your FI Festiva has no mechanism to counteract that, unlike the carbed Festivas and the Aspires which have EGR systems.

Specifically the peak temp of the gas in the cylinder.
The higher the temperature of combustion, the larger the amount of nitrogen oxides produced.
I actually didn't know we didn't have an EGR system, never paid it much attention.
However, there is a crude way to reduce the peak cylinder temperature.
Reduce the timing.
If it is advanced past OEM spec this could be your problem.
A simple distributor adjustment, after determining the present setting, might be all it needs.
If you have a timing light/gun this is a no cost test, my favorite!

[JohnGunn]

John,

Normally your advise is well founded, as is most of your original post above.
However, the cat converter used on the festiva is a three way acting device:
Oxidation HC to CO2 and water
Oxidation of CO to CO2
and
Reduction of nitrogen oxides (there are several of them) to Nitrogen and Oxygen gas.

The converter does not store these nitrogen oxides except in the sense that it holds them on the catalytic surface until the reaction is complete.

Thanks for the correction, Pu241. Glad to see some proof that someone actually reads the things I write.

In preparing my comments I read the following statement on the page at http://www.smogtips.com/failed-high-...rous-oxide.cfm

"Some vehicle manufactures have designed their cars to operate without EGR valves. Non-EGR equipped vehicles rely heavily on the Catalytic Converter to assist in the reduction of NOx. These vehicles have tendencies to develop CAT problems sooner then [sic] those which are equipped. If you own a non-EGR equipped vehicle, and have failed the emissions test for high NOx, pay close attention to the Catalytic Converter."

From that I falsely inferred that the shorter life span of cats on non-EGR equipped vehicles was the result of exhausted storage capacity.

I am happy to stand corrected.

John Gunn
Coronado, CA