Are you guys (or gals) passing inspection with a tune?

Hi,
I have tunes on both my Mustangs. All switches are on (EGR, cats, O2's etc.) so the tune is emissions legal. On the Cobra, the monitors set after about a tank of gas. That car is fine with the tune.

On the Shelby, I've driven almost 300 miles and the Cats and O2 sensors will not set. I've followed the drive cycle and the EVAP sets (and that's usually the last one to set) but the heated O2, O2 and cats will not set. Now, when I took the tune off last year, they set.

I looked over the tune with the SCT software and I don't see any emissions related components altered.

I know that the PCM for the 2014 is more advanced than the 2004. I can see that in the OBDII app. Is it possible the PCM will not let a car pass emissions with a tune? Is anyone else passing emissions with a tune?

Thanks

My car has a Lund tune and in the past had custom tunes.. It has passed emissions on Long Island since 2014. I still use a small Emissions Tester ( Walmart/Auto Barn) which plugs into the ECU each year prior to inspection to make sure all parameters are legal.
The only time I had an O2 issue coding sensors was after a Mustang Shop did headers & used sensor harnesses that...when removed...said " Made In Thailand". Not knowing I swapped out my sensors to no avail. Then other shop that was troubleshooting my codes swapped in Raptor F150 O2 sensor long/insulated harnesses. That was years ago. It never coded again and passes emission every year.

What mods do you have?

Jam421 said:

My car has a Lund tune and in the past had custom tunes.. It has passed emissions on Long Island since 2014. I still use a small Emissions Tester ( Walmart/Auto Barn) which plugs into the ECU each year prior to inspection to make sure all parameters are legal.
The only time I had an O2 issue coding sensors was after a Mustang Shop did headers & used sensor harnesses that...when removed...said " Made In Thailand". Not knowing I swapped out my sensors to no avail. Then other shop that was troubleshooting my codes swapped in Raptor F150 O2 sensor long/insulated harnesses. That was years ago. It never coded again and passes emission every year.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I do the same. I check with a tester at home since I don’t want to waste the time and money to go fail. Once the car shows emission ready, then I head out to the station.


Sent from my iPhone using the svtperformance.com mobile app

buddha93 said:

What mods do you have?

Click to expand...

JLT 127mm carbon fiber intake, FRPP 65mm throttle body, JLT catch can, FRPP sport mufflers and SCT tune.

It must be the tune. Once I take off the tune and put the stock intake on, it gets emissions ready. With the tune and intake, the cats and O2 sensors never get ready.


Sent from my iPhone using the svtperformance.com mobile app

What kind of cats are you running ?
My 2011 threw codes with Kooks " high flow " cats. Replaced them with Kooks " green " cats & passed inspection.
My 14 has the " green " cats also, just went through inspection..
.

HPLouis said:

JLT 127mm carbon fiber intake, FRPP 65mm throttle body, JLT catch can, FRPP sport mufflers and SCT tune.

It must be the tune. Once I take off the tune and put the stock intake on, it gets emissions ready. With the tune and intake, the cats and O2 sensors never get ready.


Sent from my iPhone using the svtperformance.com mobile app

Click to expand...

Its in the tune if you are still running the factory Mid pipe

me32 said:

Its in the tune if you are still running the factory Mid pipe

Click to expand...

Thanks. I’m still running the factory mid pipe. I’ll check with my tuner tomorrow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I dont know if you can get collector car registration in NY but in NJ you only have to get inspected every 5 years and and there is no emission testing with collector cars.

Definitely in the tune. As we talk about this... I recall while I was having the mechanical harness problems causing my car to code ....one of my buddies was also having emissions issues on his '14. He returned to a shop on LI where they found switches or something in the tune that ended his emissions drama.

You cannot OFFICIALLY pass emissions using an SCT handheld. Some counties don't know any better and let you through but anyone that does an actual OBD-II plug in will set a referee. You need to send the handheld and the ecu to a pro ford tuner and have them read the tune off it. Unmarry the handheld. Change the tags back to all stock ford tags and re-write the tune to the ecu without any of the sct bits in it.

1 Alibi 2 said:

What kind of cats are you running ?
My 2011 threw codes with Kooks " high flow " cats. Replaced them with Kooks " green " cats & passed inspection.
My 14 has the " green " cats also, just went through inspection..
.
View attachment 1671324
View attachment 1671325

Click to expand...

I have the stock Ford cats


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

GTMAN212 said:

I dont know if you can get collector car registration in NY but in NJ you only have to get inspected every 5 years and and there is no emission testing with collector cars.

Click to expand...

The car has to be 25 years or older so I can’t do it yet


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Jam421 said:

Definitely in the tune. As we talk about this... I recall while I was having the mechanical harness problems causing my car to code ....one of my buddies was also having emissions issues on his '14. He returned to a shop on LI where they found switches or something in the tune that ended his emissions drama.

Click to expand...

I have the SCT software and the highest level access and I don’t see any switches turned off except for P0602 and P0605. Those are PCM error codes and must be turned off when flashing or it’ll throw an error code.

I put the stock tune back on and I already had 10 warm ups and 187 miles over the past 2 days and I’m still waiting for heated O2, O2 and catalyst. The catalyst won’t set until the O2 sets and the O2 won’t set until the heated O2 sets. I’ve been following the Ford drive cycle with the stock tune for the past 187 miles but I still can’t get those three to set.

What’s pissing me off is that I had no problem passing inspection before the tune. I’ll hoping that I just need more miles and key on/off’s and then it’ll set.

For the 04 Cobra, it took a full gas tank, a little over 200 miles before they set so I’ll just keep driving.

P.S., with the SCT tune, I drove almost 300 miles and those three monitors didn’t set.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

decipha said:

You cannot OFFICIALLY pass emissions using an SCT handheld. Some counties don't know any better and let you through but anyone that does an actual OBD-II plug in will set a referee. You need to send the handheld and the ecu to a pro ford tuner and have them read the tune off it. Unmarry the handheld. Change the tags back to all stock ford tags and re-write the tune to the ecu without any of the sct bits in it.

Click to expand...

Hi,
I put the stock Ford back on and unmarried the SCT X4 tuner. I also put the stock Ford intake back on since I can’t use the JLT intake without a tune.

I’m hoping that the return to stock on the X4 put it all back to stock and removes any remnants of the SCT tune.

By the way, all I did was plug in the X4 and returned back to stock. Is that all I needed to do? I remember with my 96 Cobra, I had to unplug the battery for half an hour, turn on the lights and pump the brakes 10 times to clear out the PCM. I was told that with the cars newer than 96, you don’t have to do that anymore.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

HP....have you spoken to your tuner ? As mentioned mine passed for years now that I have actual Ford O2 sensor harness ( not from Thailand!) and it's passed since with AMR Hi-Flo Cats.
When I mentioned my buddy's issue he went back to the custom tune shop where they made changes via laptop. After about 50 miles he passed.

I have passed twice using an SCT hand held as the tuning device and I dont have any cats either. They are hollowed out. I didnt unmarry anything.

decipha said:

You cannot OFFICIALLY pass emissions using an SCT handheld. Some counties don't know any better and let you through but anyone that does an actual OBD-II plug in will set a referee. You need to send the handheld and the ecu to a pro ford tuner and have them read the tune off it. Unmarry the handheld. Change the tags back to all stock ford tags and re-write the tune to the ecu without any of the sct bits in it.

Click to expand...

thats cuz you failed to read what i wrote

Jam421 said:

HP....have you spoken to your tuner ? As mentioned mine passed for years now that I have actual Ford O2 sensor harness ( not from Thailand!) and it's passed since with AMR Hi-Flo Cats.
When I mentioned my buddy's issue he went back to the custom tune shop where they made changes via laptop. After about 50 miles he passed.

Click to expand...

I spoke to him and he said to just keep driving the car. I have the SCT Advantage software too and we both ran a compare and the emission related stuff has not been tampered with.

Right now I'm driving with the stock tune and stock airbox and it's been 10 key cycles and 218 miles and the cats and O2's still have not set. I'm just gonna keep driving because when I got the car, and it had a stock tune, it passed so I can't see why it can't pass now.

Cold starts are more important than miles driven..