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E-Test Mayhem.(LONG and nowhere near as entertaining as a "Cathy story")



So, Blacky, my trusted 86' 8V with the mighty 2L ABA is due for his last E-test(emissions, smog, drive clean, whatever you like to call it) this year. I have been looking into having him tested as a "hot rod"(hahah, yeah, I know). He does qualify because it is a larger then stock motor that was never offered in this car. I found out tonight that if I do this, I'll have to register it as a hot rod, which means my insurance would take "anal advantage" of me. So I scrapped that idea.  Now I've been quite sure that he would fail, as he has no cat, bigger motor, bigger cam, blah, blah blah. With certain parts restraints and cash flow issues I'm quite limited with what I can do for the mext little while and one of my biggest concerns was the fact that I have no cat and I can't just slap one on. You see, I'm running the ever famous "no cat" TT down pipe. 

I figured "what the hell", I might as well see what happens. So I told the guy we'd run it as is and pretend the motor is stock(they really don't care around here, as long as you have a cat and pass the test). He tells me to come back in about a half hour. Cool, I figure that gives me time to make sure the car is nice and hot when it goes in. I drive off to beat on my baby a bit. 
This is where it gets fun(as if I'm not stressed enough as it is). After about 20 minutes, I'm driving in third, just aproching normal main street speed wehn..... bog bog bog. Quickly clutch in and the car is fine...... Keep driving..... A couple minutes later, the same thing. So at this point I start watching things carefully. Car bogs again and nothing else changes. The tach stays up, voltage is fine, no idiot lights blink. At this point I clue in.....Transfer Pump!! Yay, everyones favorite "weird running issue culprit". After turning onto a side street at one point, the car bogged enough and died, I heard the ol' strangled sound of a crying fuel pump. 
GRRRREAT, just what I need. 
So I limp my way back to the Ghetto shop(they're open till 2am, does that explain the "ghetto" classification?) that's testing it for me. I park it and tell the guy what's going on, and that I just want to let the pump cool off for a bit. About 15 minutes later I flag the guy down and tell him we can go ahead.
**The whole reason I'm going to this shop, is because the P.O. of the car had it's last emission test done there. The car did so well, I'm sure it was a 2003 echo or something similar that did the test, lol**

He pulls the car in and sets everything up, and to my horror, drops to one knee to look under the car. He looks back at me smiling "You're kind of missing your cat there, eh?"
"What??  No, it's there, it's just farther back"
Kneels down and looks again "No, that's a resonator"
"What?!? No, the guy who put it on said it was a cat. We had use that one because of the downpipe"
Still on his knees, he looks again, and reaches under to tap it this time. I'm pretty freaked out here, the last thing I need is to have to deal with this right now.
He stands up, smiles at me and says "yeah, I guess that'll do"
BOOYAH!!!!!
I try to contain my glee while he tests the car(hahah "glee"). Until he lifts the hood and looks back at me kind of wierd. He then leans under and pokes at something and then comes walking over to me. It turns out my distro car had come unclipped and was just kind of flopping around.... but the car was running(I'm guessing this happened during an engine washing, lol. Perhaps a little too high pressure). He clipped it back on and ran the test. Once it's all done he backs the car out, hops out of the car and says....
...
...
You failed.....
I got the paper from him and it turns out I only failed on CO% by .05(.71 of an allowed .66) on the "running" test. We check out the cap afterwards and it's pretty screwed up inside, he said the CO usually means you've got a shitty burn, and the cap could've caused it. So I'll be back again tomorrow night with a fresh cap and rotor, and hopefully a fresh transfer pump. 
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v373/scourge133/e-test.jpg

Bah
-George