Need help getting 99 eclipse to pass inspection; car has no obvious problems

[John Ross]

I bought a 1999 Eclipse 10th Anniversary Edition on Ebay from Pennsylvania. I bought it primarily for the condition of the interior, lack of rust, and the fact that the car had never been hit. I am planning on using this car as the basis for a Superlite Apex (with a different engine). However, that won't be for a bit and I would like to license and drive the car in the meantime.

I put a new battery and fresh gas in the car when the car was shipped here to St. Louis, and the car runs well with no "Check Engine" light coming on. Occasionally at idle the engine will stumble and act like it wants to die, but doesn't. Power is what I would expect from a 2.0 liter NA engine.

My problem: Here in St. Louis, the "Emissions test" is done by OBD II code reader. My testing station guy told me to make sure I had a good battery (I put in a new one) and then drive the car, 10 miles or so around the city and 30 miles on the Interstate, and then bring it to him. He then plugged in his handheld self-contained code reader (NOT the one cable connected to the DMV computer) and shook his head, telling me his reader was only registering enough information for one or two (I forget which) of the required parameters (I think there are five.)

He told me to drive the car some more and come back. I did 50 more miles, then another 40. After each run, he plugged in his code reader with the same result.

I must tell all of you that anything electrical is far and away my area of LEAST knowledge or understanding. The engine has 180,000 miles on it and as I said, seems to run well except for occasionally stumbling at idle. I intend to put in new plugs today. Research on this forum suggests I use NGK BKR6 plugs. There are several versions. O'Reilly website says the Iridium IX are the most popular. Comments?

Any insight here would be appreciated.

John Ross

 

[RT-AWD]

Someone told me the other day that when you clear codes on the ecu, it takes around 500 miles to get all your information needed for inspection. Not sure on the truth of this because, I KNOW I cleared my codes on my DD about 2 days before I got it inspected a year ago and it passed.

 

[Jward5]

A good 50 miles should reset everything in the ECU. Here in NC we have the same inspections. I would certainly start with the plugs first then move on. I had a non turbo car a few years ago so im somewhat knowledgeable with them. NGK plugs are the best they are what i run in my 1g and evo8. Id do plugs and wires first. Have you checked the coil?