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Cam, cats, tuning, and stink. Need opinions

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Old 03-06-2015, 11:06 AM
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Default Cam, cats, tuning, and stink. Need opinions

Alright guys.
I have a 227/234 113+2 cam
Ive had it about a year and the stink with longtubes was driving me insane. I almost just sold the car because of it. So I put cats on. Unfortunately, because of my borla headers, I was very limited on where I could put the cats so they are kinda far back which takes them longer to heat up. Putting cats in helped but it still stinks. My cam only has 4 degrees of overlap so its not that big.

So why the hell does it still stink so bad? I have a wideband in my car and my AFR's are always right around 14.7

Is there anything in the tune that could be adjusted to correct this?
Im at my wits end. Ive been wanting to go with a bigger cam but not if its going to get even worse.
Old 03-06-2015, 11:18 AM
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Are you saying the stink is "rich fuel" smell?
I run a cam with 10* overlap, an idle A/F (open loop) around 13.5 and don't have any rich fuel smell.
The Wideband only reads one bank; the other bank might be running pig rich due to a bad injector.
Do you have HPT or other scanner to read the stock O2 sensors?
If you are running near 14.7, the stock O2 sensor should both be oscillating around .5 volts.
(Personally I now run two wideband sensors, one in each bank, and it has already helped me diagnose problems. I realize that is overkill for most people.)
Old 03-06-2015, 11:38 AM
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Yes Fuel smell. Putting in the cats helped take the edge off but still every time I come to a traffic light I can smell it. I also installed brand new o2's about two weeks ago just in case and I also can monitor the o2's with the torque app and both of them oscilate quickly and seem to be functioning the way they should. The cam I was going to go with also has 10 degrees of overlap but Im scared to go bigger now if its just going to get worse. I know that my tuner changed the injector timing a little but Do you move injector timing forward or back? and how much?
Old 03-06-2015, 01:01 PM
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Good that you thought to check both O2 sensors.
Injector timing is super complex; few tuners will touch it. Here is hours of reading on the subject:
http://www.hptuners.com/forum/showth...ereencing-what

I don't know if really bad injector timing could give you fuel smell, but I would go back to stock values and see if that helps.
Old 03-06-2015, 01:15 PM
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That cam that you say has only 5 degrees of overlap is at .050 lift likely has over 50 degrees of overlap at .006 lift.
Old 03-06-2015, 01:22 PM
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I've found that these 3 things in the tune have helped tremendously with the fuel smell of a cammed car:

upping the idle speed
lowering idle timing
delaying end of injector timing

The link that mrvedit posted is a good one for the last part, but the other 2 also helped. Not much you can do beyond that besides changing up the exhaust to a more efficient set of cats. I was able to just about eliminate the smell with my 2.5* of overlap, so you should be able to also with those tips.
Old 03-06-2015, 02:46 PM
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How far back are the cats? My cam has 22 deg of overlap and I can only smell it after I stomp on it and it's been a while.
Old 03-06-2015, 05:21 PM
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they are kinda far back unfortunately.

I don't have that great of pictures but ill try and explain.

I have borla longtubes that only come in an offroad option and its 2 3/4 size pipe so its an uncommon size. The Xpipe is right after the collectors so my only choice was to get rid of the Xpipe completely or put it after the X


Old 03-06-2015, 05:36 PM
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I'd be concerned that they would plug up over time due to them not heating up. Any way you can find out how hot they are getting?
Old 03-06-2015, 05:55 PM
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Originally Posted by scotty2000ss
I'd be concerned that they would plug up over time due to them not heating up. Any way you can find out how hot they are getting?
I don't have a way to find out how hot they are getting at the moment but If I was to find a way, how hot is reasonable?

When I talked to an exhaust shop, they said that I shouldn't have to worry about them getting plugged but that it would just take longer to light.

Maybe I should run it hard and get them really hot and see how the idle smell is after that. Maybe during the summer they will be better.
Old 03-06-2015, 05:56 PM
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What if I put header wrap on them?
Old 03-06-2015, 06:03 PM
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I would find out how hot they are getting then contact the manufacturer of the converters to be sure.
Old 03-06-2015, 07:16 PM
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I have tuned vettes with cats there and that looked really similar to those. The couple I saw off the car you could look right through them, they pretty much are for passing visual inspection. None of them functioned good enough to make the pcm happy and think it had working cats.
Old 03-06-2015, 08:37 PM
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Originally Posted by redtan
lowering idle timing
I learned this one semi recently, this made the most difference for me. My car has less smell and the smell it has is more like an old carbed muscle car smell. Also idle is way more stable when turning the steering wheel, turning on AC etc. The idle underspeed table can actually do its job!

Any exhaust leaks will obviously make it smell worse.
Old 03-07-2015, 08:35 AM
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Originally Posted by David_viny
I learned this one semi recently, this made the most difference for me. My car has less smell and the smell it has is more like an old carbed muscle car smell. Also idle is way more stable when turning the steering wheel, turning on AC etc. The idle underspeed table can actually do its job!

Any exhaust leaks will obviously make it smell worse.
I see that all the time doing re-tunes, for whatever reason people try to run crazy idle timing and it makes it smell horrible. I have had them burning my eyes trying to back them on the dyno before.
Old 03-07-2015, 01:45 PM
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How low can you go with idle timing before it starts not running right and getting worse smell wise? I think I have it like 17-19 right now at 750.
Old 03-09-2015, 01:55 PM
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Im going to check my idle timing today and report back. I have a way to monitor it but no way to tune it myself
Old 03-09-2015, 01:57 PM
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Originally Posted by LSX Power Tuning
I have tuned vettes with cats there and that looked really similar to those. The couple I saw off the car you could look right through them, they pretty much are for passing visual inspection. None of them functioned good enough to make the pcm happy and think it had working cats.
Yeah they arent very big for one and when I looked through, I couldnt literally see through it but I could see light on the other side easily. Basically they arent very thick



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