Ian's build thread

[jason82]

Hi Ian, loving the build thread mate, I hope that you can get the emissions sorted. I love the coke bottle idea for the rear shock towers !

[ian360]

I’m looking for help please before i finally scrap this project.
Everything has passed Iva except emissions, still, and I’ve tried as much as I can think of without any improvement to the emission result.
its taken some time as obviously not easy to check without visiting the garage, and bad weather and holidays have delayed things.
ive now run about 200 miles since we thought it was a build up of crap in the engine so that should have cleared. Still the car runs as i would expect, no missing, bad fuel economy, over heating or fluid loss issues.
i checked all the sensors and if removing them made the expected difference to running. All are good on both multi meter readings and engine effect if removed. The injectors are all working using the ‘click’ test, and all spark plugs look to be in similar condition.
compression test on cylinders all good and similar results on each one.
i changed the lambda for a new one just to make sure. There was a small leak on the exhaust so i wrapped all the joins double thick.
the test yesterday was worse than the previous one, CO level over 3% (up from best reading of 0.5) and lambda reading jumping all over the place but not consistently in the approved range.

 I am thinking my donor was cursed, but actually it is an import and not therefore a standard mk2. 1998 1.6 and searching around various forums it seems these imports into UK always struggle on emissions. Most of the corrective action is what i have looked at, unless I’m missing something?
The only changes i made from the donor was removing the charcoal cannsister and replacing the air filter with a K&N intake (i checked with K&N if using the 1.8 model version would have a negative effect and they said no). I capped off one vac valve that the canister was attached to, cant see any more that should also be? I have a breather pipe on the fuel tank and am told that if fuel pressure was out the car wouldn’t run as well as it does.

so really at a loss as to what i can do now, and any guidance would be appreciated. Do i need to go new ECU route?

unless this can be fixed I’ll satisfy myself that i got the build done to passable standard and leave it at that.
hoping that wont be the case and there’s some inspiration out there.
Many thanks

[jason82]

Have you still got the items for the charcoal canister ? Try fitting it back into the system. I know that this effects the emmisions. Maybe the charcoal system is more important as the fueling will be different through the ecu in a country with less strict emmisions, as in the mix will be richer.i think that a uk ecu will also make a difference, but the trouble is that you will then need to swap out the ignition key & barrell. Try the canister first, a proper Mazda one, you will definitely see an improvement, do not buy the smaller land rover item as a fellow builder has mentioned on his thread that it doesn't work.

[browno]

Just a thought that you may have already covered - but could there be an inlet air leak somewhere (have you blanked all ports from the charcoal canister etc?) - my reading of the results is that you are running a little lean (i.e. lambda >1) which could be a result of unmetered air getting into the inlet - maybe double check and if there are any openings on the manifold that you have overlooked...

Apologies if you have already covered this!