Brenspeed Tune, Failed PA Emissions Testing... help!

So I installed a C&L Street kit with a Brenspeed Tune (XCal).

Performance-wise, it's great... no complaints.

5 days later though I realized my PA Emissions/Inspection testing was due by the end of July 08. I took it to my dealer and the car failed emissions. The tech asked if the battery had recently died, or been replaced. I told him no, and explained the work I had done regarding the CAI and Tune. They weren't overly concerned with the mods, but informed me that because of the short period of time between the re-flash and testing... the car had failed.

The report reads: "FAILED EMISSION. NOT OBD READY."

elsewhere on the report it reads much of the same: "CAR NOT READY FOR TEST."

The tech suggested I drive it a bit more and bring it back in, which I'm currently doing but time is running out. Has anybody had any experience with this? Will the OBD be OK after a few hundred more miles? I can't imagine it is going to make a big difference and it is a royal PITA to lose my car even just for a day to get this crap done.

I contacted Brenspeed via email with the same question, but hoped somebody here might be able to help as well. Thanks for your time.

untune it and put the stock stuff back on for testing

I was about to say the same thing.


You can do without the tune and the intake for a day. Why go to the dealer for emissions?

Some people can be hard on emissions. My friend 2006 Vette failed because a crack on the windscreen could be felt by his fingers.

DO NOT RE-TUNE THE CAR!!!

The car needs to be driven as your Tech explained to you. If you reflash the EEC and return the car to stock, you will have the same issue...

It sounds as if the tech is suggesting that more time needs to take place for the car to have completed a "drive cycle." Did you drive the car on the highway yet? I understand from the manual this is necessary to reset the cats.

The manual states, "Normally, the readiness status of all components or systems will be “ready”. However, if the vehicle’s battery has been recently disconnected, or if DTCs have been recently cleared with a scan tool, all non-continuous components or systems will be set to “not ready”. Also, if the driving habits of the vehicle owner or environmental conditions are such that an appropriate "drive cycle" has not been completed, that monitor will not be ready. As an example, the catalytic converter will generally only be monitored when the vehicle is fully warm, at highway speed, and under light load. A vehicle that never sees these conditions will never be ready, since the cat monitor will never run.

I hope this helps.

Your tech is right. The only problem is that the computer has not had enough miles on it since the re-flash. If you re-flash it again, as the above poster said, you would have to wait the same amount of time all over again. You didn't fail because the emissions were bad, it was because it just needs more data, no biggie. I think this same question was asked a week or two ago, and that was the general consensus.

According to Doug at BamaChips, the Ford ECM runs a series of tests called "Readiness Tests" on specific systems and sensors, and these tests in turn tell the ECM if these items are performing up to par. However, when you tune your engine some of these tests are disabled by the tune in order to speed up the ECM, which in turn helps to increase engine performance. This is the reason your car got the "FAILED EMISSION. NOT OBD READY" and "CAR NOT READY FOR TEST" failure messages.
The best method to pass the emissions test is to simply reinstall the stock tune and the stock intake as suggested by others, and then drive your car approximately 50 miles or 20-30 minutes. This will reset all of the "Readiness Monitors", and allow the car to pass as long as there are no other issues.

You may also wanna contact Brenspeed. I think most tunes include turning off some tests, have heard that he will send you an 'emissions friendly' tune to enable you to pass.

I don't buy the 20 - 30 minutes on a stock tune/stock car...

I had issues with my Throttle body sensor, I returned my car completely to stock, trying to figure it out. After 6 days of city and highway driving( Completely stock ), my car had the exact code of not being OBD ready. It took my car over 1000 KMs to finally clear that code.

I drove the car approximately 360 miles between the Tune and Emissions test.

Still no response from Brenspeed. If I have to reinstall the airbox and retune the car yearly from here out, that's somewhat of a PITA considering my current living situation.

Hopefully they can email me an emissions friendly tune and I can have it on the car for a few days before re-testing...

Of course it will be August by then and I'm sure some nice police officer will issue me a $100 ticket.

PUT IT BACK TO STOCK

by retuning it back to stock you will just have to wait longer . you have to do a complete drive cycle in which the cars computer needs to see specific things take place some are easy some not so easy like 60 mph for 10 min. then down to 20 mph with out touching the brakes . and some others they dont make it easy . your car wont turn the check engne light on but when you go for state inspection in a state that has obd testing they want to make sure all the monitors are ready or people would just go to auto zone have there codes cleared and then go get there cars inspected .we see it all the time at our shop they figure the light is off it will pass . go to your local repair shop or dealer and ask them if they can print off a drive cycle for you . you will see its not that easy to complete .

Like most people said, the car needs to see very specific driving condition to run the emmisions monitors. Before this happens, the monitors will say "not ready", so it isn't exactly a failure, but a rejection. It could take a few hours, or it could take a couple weeks. You can use a rented scanner from like autozone to tell if the monitors are ran.

As far as I know, the only monitor that would be disabled by the tune is the cat monitor. Some states, like IL, allow one monitor to be not ready, so this would be ok and would pass. But if your state requires all monitors passed, you will have to retune the car to stock and go through a drive cycle. Unless you don't have an offroad pipe, in which case the 02 monitor should still be on, and you probably just need more driving time. Try and find more information on the requirements for PA testing, it may help.

Brenspeed contacted me, apparently they shut off my rear O2 sensors with the tune.

This doesn't affect driving in any way, and I'm not really sure why they felt the need to do this.

Apparently it's for people who have off-road H-pipes etc... except that I explicitly told them my mods; and that's not one of them. Anyhow, they are going to email me an emissions-friendly tune. Then I'll have to complete the drive cycle.

And no thanks to returning it to stock. When you live in center city Philly without any of your tools it's not the most convenient thing to do.

Wow, not impressed with Brenspeed now; what kind o idiot would turn off the rear O2 sensors? Even if u had an off road? Relocate them properly and tune for it u petereater. I was considering them for my first mod...not anymore.

Any tuner would do that, it is the best way to eliminate the MIL with an offroad pipe. The rear sensors do nothing but verify catalyst operation. The front 02s are the sensors that the PCM uses to monitor air/fuel ratio. Without cats, the computer will think that the cats are bad, because the signal from the rear 02 will match the front 02, when it is supposed to be a flat line (front 02 puts out a sine curve) showing that the exhaust is "clean". There is no relocating the sensors, anywhere on the pipe will recieve the same exhaust gas, thus producing the same signal, and turning on the MIL. All turning them off does is basically disabling the catalyst monitor, so that the computer does not know the cats are not there. There is no other reason to have the rear 02s OTHER than monitoring the cats. That being said, it doesn't take an idiot to turn them off, that is the only way that any tuner would do it. MIL eliminators are a half-assed bandaid that isn't a good idea in the first place.

+1, every after-market tune I've had experience with has done the same thing.

Good to know that Brenspeed did that for you. I'm going through the same issue, driving around with expired tags because I failed inspection. I turned it back to stock but if Brenspeed can provide an emissions friendly version I will contact them to get that.


***Update***
Just called Brenspeed. They told me to email them with certain info and they would email a new file by Friday. Excellent customer service!

Just an update:

I emailed Brenspeed the information (on sunday) they needed to write an emissions-friendly tune. They replied monday saying I would have it by this friday at the latest...

I mentioned I was in a bit of a rush to get it inspected (in order to avoid any tickets) and Brent had the new tune in my inbox monday night. Wow.

+10 for customer service

Now I'm just driving it a bit to complete a drive-cycle before taking it in for emissions testing. Although I have confidence they took care of me, I will still report back with my results (for anybody in a similar situation).

Thanks for the help guys.

Actually on the Mustang you need to disable the rear 02 sensors if you take the cats off. Leaving them on will make your car run out of whack. But they shouldn't have turned them off if you still have cats.

I still leave my rear 02s in, but I went in the tune and set the 02 system to only read the fronts, and then altered the COT controls.