My problem had more to do with longtubes...along with the cams. I couldn't put a stock tune (or a mail order tune for that matter) that would work worth a damn with the rear O2's enabled and the FRPP cams. To make matters worse I had a dyno tune with a predator tuner nobody could email me an "emissions" tune for. There are no tuners here in Austin and I was having to drive to san antonio, re-dyno tune then back up to Austin (because you MUST get stickered in your county here in TX to be legal and san antonio isn't an emissions county anyway). After driving back and forth twice missing work and still failing my inpection I got fed up and had the cams removed, sold them. Even with the stock cams back in the car I was failing due to the longtube headers and hi-flow cats. O2 sens not ready, O2 sens htr not ready and catalyst not ready.

I was finally able to sell the goddamn useless predator programmer and purchase an SCT so I could work with mail order tuners/companies. They sent me an emissions tune and I still failed!! Eventually had to get o2 sensor "raisers" to move the o2's out of the exhaust stream enough for them to come ready. They remained in a ready state for exactly 24 hours, long enough to get stickered and then my CEL light came back on. I said screw it and put my original tune back on with the rear o2's disabled to kill the light. I guess I'll have to go through that every year. I don't care at this point...

 

Holy crap man. Sorry you had to go through all that!

 

Lol, yeah it was a lotta fun. Now that I own an SCT Xcal tuner I plan to purchase the "pro racer" software and figure out how to make my equipment and the rear O2's play nice together

 

they do both and throw in a safety inspection. need to load a safe tune drive min 100 miles and have 0 check eng codes and u r cool.

 

I didn't have to drive anywhere near 100 miles to reset my o2 ready state or the "wait interval" for the rear O2's to show ready after reset. It appears to be more of a countdown of some sort because after resetting it took EXACTLY 8-12 hours for the O2's to come ready again no matter how much driving was done. I reset the CEL, drove back and forth to work at around 5 miles each way and the O2's were ready by the next afternoon...every time.

 

Wow, all this talk of switching back to stock tune and/or exhaust just to pass a stupid emissions test is making me not want to bother with those mods, as the emissions testing here is a real fraud! If you live in the 8 county radius surrounding Cleveland, you're required to do E-check while the rest of the state doesn't have to comply...nevermind that I have the biggest polluters in Ohio right in my backyard!

 

I cant say for any other states/counties other than my own but it can be a real issue, yes. When I was going through my tests last time I saw them stick a sniffer in my tailpipe and thats the deathknell. If they sniff your exhaust there is now way around the fact that your cats must be in good working order, no matter what OBDII tells you. I went to a different station and they didn't sniff me.

It's really hard to pass with longtube headers and hi-flow cats. If you have shorty headers it's easier. And easier still with stock exhaust and catted h-pipe.

If they don't sniff your exhaust, all you have to do is fool the computer. And thats fairly easy to do...unless you have big-ol long duration cams like FRPP hotrods pushing loads of unburnt fuel through the system. Your tune has to be SPOT ON just to fool the computer with those cams and I seriously doubt you would EVER pass a sniff test with them. Thats why when I had someone begging to buy them for nearly my purchase price I took them out asap.

 

I may install some shorter duration blower cams (comp cams) with the Vortech I'm saving for but those super long-duration, rumping cams like FRPP and thumpers are hard to tune for emissions. Some of the best tuners in the centex area (Dallas mustang, Murillo Racing, etc) told me it would be hit and miss to get stickered with those cams.

 

Oh yeah, not to go OT, but Wisconsin was the same. I know that Milwaukee, Waukesha Counties required emissions testing. If you lived in Jefferson, or other country counties, you could just send in your check and make as much pollution as you wanted!! Grip it and rip it. Which was fine by me cuz the last county I lived in was Jefferson

 

Wow so up in the dallas area they use the sniffer on 1995+ cars

makes me more eager to get my T-bird in good shape (its 25 years old so it doesn't have to pass emisions just safety)
I haven't drive the T-bird since I bought the mustang but now I'm more inclined to do some work on the t-bird