NC Inspection problem with admissions and ECU!! (HELP?)

[aaronpolk]

Just bought a 97-gst about a month ago with 123xxx on the motor, car drives amazing and pulls hard but since Ive had it Ive poured almost a grand into it for: (due to oil leaks) new valve gasket, timing belt, water pump, drive belts, crank shaft seals- new hoses and lines that run antifreeze which was recently leaking freash oil change and filter and ofcourse labor because half of that stuff I couldnt do myself due to work) I've had thoughts of sellin it and flippin it.. Just not sure if I want too yet heres why tho..

Here in my part of NC we have inspections and 96' and up we have to run the car thru admissions which is crap and ofcourse the previous owner went into the ecu and messed with something cause none of the codes are reading and heck if I know if he used dsm link to go in and delete a bunch of stuff like cat,secondary air, egr and ac, or what? But none of them are reading and I have put over 600 miles on it sense 2nd attempt of inspection and still no check engine light has come on at all and they still say "not ready"so idk what it is ..So after this fix with the leaking, ecu fix will be the next one..
Was thinkin about buyin a stock ecu from ebay or somethiing out of 97 gst like mine which is only 40 bucks but i just wanna get my ride on the road so idk what other choice I have besides that. I dont know anyone around town who does dsm link and I cant drive anywhere far seeing as I can get tag cause i cant pass inspection.. ugh Hopefully it'll all work out.. Tips and ideas are welcome tho! And thank you!

Also where is the ecu located? This is my first 4g63..

 

[1992awdlaser]

If they are saying that it failed for showing not ready then the check engine light won't come on. What they are referring to is basically a diagnostic check of certain parts that the ecu does itself. It check multiple emissions related equipment for problems. These checks are called monitors. After it checks each it will show up as ready or not ready. It takes a certain set of conditions for the car to check the monitors. most of the time take it through a few full heat cycles will get the monitors to run. Have the 600 miles been with you heating the car up completely and letting it cool completely multiple times?

Monitors can be a pain to get ready sometimes. With Dsmlink you can turn off certain checks but this won't effect the obdII emissions test. The reason it won't is because these will now show up as n/a in the computer. The obdII machine only tests for active monitors. Monitors that show up as n/a are not active. There are monitors in every ecu that show up as n/a since not every type of emissions equipment is used on every vehicle.


Basically, let the car go through multiple heat cycles and hope it gets the monitors to run.

 

[aaronpolk]

Thanks that helps quite a bit.. but yeah the its been through multiple heating cycles I drove it for ten days straight on a ten day tag they allowed me.. and then went for test a again and 4 out of 8 monitors still werent ready.. So idk if maybe something has come unhooked maybe?...
But i would think that would throw a check engine light tho..

A couple weeks ago when i tried my first inspection that day the check engine light came on and I took it somewhere to read the code and see what it was and it was the egr code and we looked and their was a vacuum hose that had come unhooked so they cleared the codes and have set probably 700 miles in several different and still same problem thats why I thought he chipped it or deleted something..
Thx tho for the info and advice.

 

[1992awdlaser]

Resetting the check engine light also resets all the monitors to not ready. Disconnecting the battery will also do this.

 

[aaronpolk]

Yeah I know... I mean it has plenty of miles on it sense then.. Could the monitors be bad? Or is their anyway to check really?