EXHAUST SMELL

Joined
16 September 2003
Messages
405
Location
Columbus, Ohio
Got noxious exhaust smell from my 92. Bone stock engine except for Comptech headers/rear O2 delete/test pipes/step motor delete/Comptech intake). In the following 20k I’ve driven I’ve never had this bad smell, only the expected CO. So I replaced my very old O2 sensor but that made no diff. No check engine light. No smoke or oil smell so I guess it’s simply a “rich” smell. Cold/hot idle is perfect and it runs great. Maybe one of the injectors not closing all the way from my lack of driving much? I was planning on finally putting a few hundred miles on it this fall, but now I’m spooked as I don’t know if this is just an idle thing or a rich all the time thing. Would it be safe to put in some Techron cleaner and take a long ride? Thanks!
 
 
Exhaust smell is not particularly helpful. I will note that CO has absolutely no smell which is why it is so effective at killing people with faulty furnaces. Your 1992 does not have the secondary O2 sensors that are associated with the OBDII system and monitor the condition of the catalytic converter. What is that 'rear O2 delete' all about since you never would have had a rear O2 sensor.

Have you deleted the catalytic converters? If so, that is likely the cause of your odours. EGR reduces NOx slightly; but, the majority of the NOx clean up occurs in the cat. High compression engines are particularly good at generating NOx and if the cat has been deleted or is dead it may be NOx that you are smelling - a particularly acrid eye watering stench. Everybody has forgotten (or not old enough to have experienced) what the air smelled like in the world of pre emission control vehicles.

The engine nominally operates at an air fuel ratio of 14.7 which in theory means no HC; but, the engine more accurately operates around 14.7 so relies on the cat to do the final clean up. HC does have smells; but, since the HCs are probably a bunch of different compounds and the smells vary. However, they are typically over whelmed by the stench of NOx on a high compression engine.

On a flyer, if you still have cats you could go get your tail pipe sniffed and that would tell you pretty quickly whether your cats are dead. If you have deleted the cats the car is going to stink and the people stuck in traffic behind you are going to be thinking 'what a piece of junk' and switching their AC to recirc mode.
 
Exhaust smell is not particularly helpful. I will note that CO has absolutely no smell which is why it is so effective at killing people with faulty furnaces. Your 1992 does not have the secondary O2 sensors that are associated with the OBDII system and monitor the condition of the catalytic converter. What is that 'rear O2 delete' all about since you never would have had a rear O2 sensor.

Have you deleted the catalytic converters? If so, that is likely the cause of your odours. EGR reduces NOx slightly; but, the majority of the NOx clean up occurs in the cat. High compression engines are particularly good at generating NOx and if the cat has been deleted or is dead it may be NOx that you are smelling - a particularly acrid eye watering stench. Everybody has forgotten (or not old enough to have experienced) what the air smelled like in the world of pre emission control vehicles.

The engine nominally operates at an air fuel ratio of 14.7 which in theory means no HC; but, the engine more accurately operates around 14.7 so relies on the cat to do the final clean up. HC does have smells; but, since the HCs are probably a bunch of different compounds and the smells vary. However, they are typically over whelmed by the stench of NOx on a high compression engine.

On a flyer, if you still have cats you could go get your tail pipe sniffed and that would tell you pretty quickly whether your cats are dead. If you have deleted the cats the car is going to stink and the people stuck in traffic behind you are going to be thinking 'what a piece of junk' and switching their AC to recirc mode.
My bad memory on the "rear" o2 delete -never had it. No i don't have cats, but honestly i would have noticed any abnormal odors before this. At 600 miles a year i'm not going to feel too guilty. Gosh I've had a ton of cars/bikes (some as high as 13 cr) with no cats/before cats and they have had no more "discernable" stink. My new cars will drive me out of the garage about as fast as my old stuff. Since my pea-brain is still in the hot rod mode, perhaps i'm missing the higher combustion temp generating the nox thing. That said i obviously need to study up on my exhaust gas theory. I'll clean my injectors and perhaps get a sniff test to see just how "bad" a boy i am he-he. Thanks!
 
Assuming you have both the front bank and rear bank O2 sensors, it's possible one of them failed and the ECU has defaulted to open loop operation. This mode is inherently designed to run rich to protect the engine and the exhaust will smell worse. You should have gotten a CEL if this occurred and you'll notice rougher running, including idle. If there's no CEL, then I too would suspect the injectors.

Another possibility is the PCV system. PCV blowby gas smells terrible. Your NSX vents the PCV gas to the intake manifold to be burned. This happens under engine vacuum, so it most often occurs at idle. Since you don't have cats, you might have caught a whiff of the PCV gas being burned.
 
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