Germanturtle

located in ca so i have the dreaded smog to deal with took car in as stock as possible. stock intake, oem cat, berk catback installed, air pump components gone and izzey air pump delete installed. car passed but tech told me 15 mph hc's are almost a fail measured 54 with a max of 58. seams like there is a small leak after the cat in the exhaust flange.. tech stated my fuel injectors may be dirty. is this a load of garbage. car has 80,000 miles and has been well taken care of. i did install a hondata intake manifold gasket and have heard they do potentially leak. tech said car is running lean. no check engine lights obviously... please advise on where to begin.. mods please move post if theres a better home for it.. thank you. have a good night.

allmotor2o9

Your hydrocarbon (HC) are high because you removed the air pump. Your lucky the tech missed it because your vehicle is suppose to fail the visual inspection. Haha

Germanturtle

i know right! it was a gamble but it passed. i didnt think the air pump made a difference during operating temperature? thanks for the input.. and others care to give there 2 cents??

zeroptzero

hydrocarbons are basically unburned fuel, maybe a bit of oil too. How old are your sparkplugs ? , they can start to deteriorate after 50k miles despite their 100k mile rating.

If it was running lean your Nox readings would be high as cylinder temps increase.

I would run some fuel injector cleaner through the car, (inexpensive and worth a try - Redline is my preference in FI cleaners, Techron is good too) and check the sparkplugs, basically things that can lead to an incomplete burn of the air-fuel will cause high hydrocarbons.