EGR and Smog Legal

[Wayne Cox]

At 10:59 AM 12/8/2002 -0600, BodyArt27@aol.com wrote:
>I feel your pain as I also have a 91 and can't get the car to pass. I
>replaced the cat ... the EGR tube and the EGR. Still failed, but with a
>wad of receipts Texas "exempted" me for a year on best effort

I've always felt EGR was a big crock of shit, ever since removing my first
manifold and head ('73 Olds Cutlass) and seeing the amount of crap it
plasters the engine internals with.  I have no doubt it makes for a cleaner
exhaust on the fresh new engines they submit for EPA testing.  But what
about an 80,000 mile engine with 1/8" or more of soot caked on the valves,
ports, throttle plate, etc.?

So, I've disconnected the EGR on all my cars I care about.  How much
difference does it make?  When I lived in Ohio, we had a smog test with the
drive wheels on a dyno-style roller and sniffer tube up the tail pipe doing
something like a 10 - 50mph pull.  I took my then 10 year old 132K mile
NX2k in for testing, and accidentally forgot to reconnect the EGR.  Results:

Item    Reading Units   Limit
HC      20.0            PPM     141.0
CO      0.07            %       0.79
CO2     14.23           %       --

I don't know how that compares to other states' tests, or other cars.  But
it easily passed with no EGR and no prep other than warming it up.

    -Wayne    '91 NX2k - '93 NK2k - '92 SE-R parts car