Menu:

SVA - The tests

<26th April 2006>
1st SVA Test today!!



Absolute nightmare

On the way there the Speedo stopped working?!?!?

Then when we got thier the dip stick was making some funny noises (ended up trimming it and that fixed the issue so it must have bent round and caught on the crank)

then the Front fan was not switching on and so it was getting really hot

And finally the emissions where too high

All in all a bad start but he commented on the build quality being very good and that there was nothing at all wrong with it apart from that.

The brakes were very good, all the electrics were good and everything secured well. All i have to get re-checked are emissions and noise (didn't test noise due to the overheating)

We did notice on the ramp though a small leak in the sump which seemed to be coming from one of the seems.

<1st May 2006>
Took the sump off to get it rewelded by one of my neigbours.



<13th May 2006>
Got the sump back and so fitted it back on and filled it back up. It's now ready to take for the emissions fixing. <16th May 2006>

Took the car over to Southern Carbs (place i got the Alpha kit from) to get the emissions looked at



<20th May 2006>

Picked the car up from Southern Carbs. They said the main problems were down to the throttle potentiometer being slightly out. This had all been fixed and they provided me with a print out to show the emissions levels were well within the allowed range



<25th May 2006>

Test number 2!

FAILED.......... Again on emissions!!!

So the noise was now checked and passed but the emissions were out ever so slightly on the lambda.
You're allow to be within 0.97 and 1.03 and i was at 1.07. CO2 emmisions were fine at 0.02% but i was not a happy person at this point. <31st May 2005>

Another trip up to Southern Carbs today. This time i left very early and it was bitterly cold. So i practically froze on the M25 and A13 at 70mph! Will definitely get those side doors sorted as soon as its through the test.

<3rd June 2006>

Picked it up from southern carbs again, the day started off badly having had to get a train for 2 hours over to wimbledon. Then got steadily worse when the car wouldn't start! It was a wire had come loose on the injector/ecu relay and once crimped back on the car started fine. For the first 100 meters at least until it ran out of petrol!??!?! I was directed to a petrol station a mile walk from the car (friendly Fiat dealership salesman) whereby, on arrival they didn't sell petrol cans!!!!!
So a long walk back the mile to see if i could borrow one from somewhere and about 200 meters from the car i see a different petrol garage the other direction! walking there fruitfully provided me with a can and 5 litres of unleaded!

After that everything was great, it was the hottest day of the year and the traffic wasn't too bad so i had a lovely 45 miles of Westfield to enjoy.



My next retest is booked on for the 13th June at 8am and the whole thing has been re-mapped now so will hopefully be ok!

<13th June 2006>

Failed AGAIN!!!!!

Still running too lean. So i called Southern Carbs and they basically told me they had done all they could and had nothing else to try (not a slur on them as they were very helpful and did spend a lot of time working on getting the car sorted) So i called Webcon directly to see if they had any ideas.
I spoke to a very knowledgable and nice guy call Alan Collins there and he agreed to take the car in and have a look (something they don't usually do). So i had a trip over to Twickenham to do luckily it was a nice sunday afternoon!



I then booked my next SVA re-test straight away and the best i could get was the 7th July!

This was a blessing in disguise as i had to pick the car up on the 5th July from Webcon after they had spent a lot of time looking at my problem.
It turns out the issue was not anything to do with the actual emissions but more to do with the SVA testers probe not being long enough to get a clean sample and was being contaminated from oxygen from outside the exhaust in a charateristic known as pulsing.

The solution was a piece of piping that Alan devised to insert into the exhaust to then insert the probe into to provide a clean sample.



Then i had a late, after work drive home from twickenham



<7th July 2006>

The device worked a treat and i got my elusive pass!