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A customer at the bmw shop I work at gave me his 633csi yesterday! It no longer has any emissions stuff and very low on power . It has a ripped intake boot and didn’t run at all until I taped it . A new one is in the mail . Anyway how do you guys get through emissions? I live in Colorado and they are pretty strict.

Welcome to the madness, now how cool is that

Regarding getting through emissions testing in CO, meh, try CA

There are several members from CO on the board, tshultz and hefeweisen come to mind, might want to PM directly for info, pretty sure both have series I (early) cars and Tom has an '80 Euro as well, surely "fun" to get tested

Once again, welcome

Congrats on the acquisition. New Mexico is emissions friendly, just saying. Even in Abq, over 35 years old is the golden number for emissions exempt. Check to see what year your cylinder head is, the one I just replaced was a 79' and it was cracked.

It has a spare head in the trunk so maybe it’s been replaced or maybe it needs to be replaced haha . I was thinking about just welding flanges for a removable cat or cats but I feel like it would destroy a cat pretty fast . I haven’t even attempted to get it though. Think the people who work there know what the air injection and reactors look like . I have those also in the trunk . How bad is it to bolt them on once every two years . How do they even work ? Thanks for any help !

So is it 1983/84 or is it an earlier car.

I don't have experience with air injection but with a cat a the engine tuned up close you should be fine. Easiest would be to get a wideband gauge and see what it's doing after you get it running OK.

For emissions if it is running well and you have a CAT you should be fine. The problem is running lean and getting a reading of high NOx to fail.

I really appreciated this post:
viewtopic.php?t=19661

It is a 79 that had reactors instead of cats . I do still have them how do Thermal reactors work ? Can I just bolt them on temporarily? Without doing a bunch of plumbing? Thank you for the link that was helpful .

Before '82 I think, you only need to pass the two idle test here in Denver, so you may actually be able to pass if you show up with a warmed up engine... Worth the $20 to try I'd say.

I saved this from my dad's E3 which had the same system:

and another schedmatic: https://www.bmw2002faq.com/applications ... 268e737c34

I haven't messed with one so I don't exactly know how it works, but it looks like it takes exhaust gasses and pushes them back through the engine after they go through some sort of filter. It seems the air pump also somehow reduces the concentration of exhaust gasses by adding heat...

It is well known that these systems caused so much heat that cylinder heads were cracked and a lof of these systems were removed from the engines.

Air injection tubes in each exhaust port to cause the exhaust gases to get HOTTER!
EGR dumps nasty carbon building krapp into your intake track - really fouling up the intake ports, Intake valves, and causes very poor running when the system is sick

Yes I am going to try tomorrow. I am just praying the the people working there don’t know enough to tell that All that stuff is gone .

I just removed al the egr crap from my 77 e12. It seems to be an unbelievably complicate and primitive system. I doubt I would be able to replace it all correctly and make it work again if I had to in order to pass emissions. I think the way it works is the belt driven air pump that resides above the alt, pumps air in to the the front of the exhaust manifold then the oxygen makes the exhaust gases completely burn all the nasty hydrocarbons up and spews clean( haha) air. The exhaust manifolds get extremely hot and in my cars case the tar heat shield material has actually turned molten and flowed down the side of the inner fender . Its a hardened black goo mess all along the frame rail. I've all also picked up a set of E12 M535i exhaust manifolds and downpipes to replace the dreaded thermal reactors. I'll be interested to hear how you do at the emission testers. I'll bet they have no idea what the egr/thermal reactor system should look like. Although they may wonder where the cat is. Good luck

Sorry but I live in Colorado Springs where we don't have that requirement. Tom got all the points covered and unfortunately, I have nothing to add but the usual stuff like: New spark plugs, filter, oil change maybe?

If I'm not mistaken, your car will qualify for the 'Collectors' license plate here in Colorado. You should be able to take it to one of the few remaining emissions stations for older cars and have it tested. These guys are few and far between, but generally very workable, wink-wink, as far as obtaining a passing emissions test. ($) If you do pass, your plates are good for five years and you generally will never need to have another test. Toph

Do you know of any of these classic car emissions shops in the Denver area . A quick google search didn’t show me any.

https://www.emissions.org/colorado-emis ... locations/

You can try any of these, on the phone first, to explain your issue. Maybe see if you can get a helpful and positive response. Toph

I'd be interested to hear what you find out about this subject :)

'76-'82 are the only years that you have to worry about here, so only a select few of us have to worry about it.

So I went to emmissions today and failed visual because after ten minutes of looking they couldn’t tell how the air injection system worked . Mine has been deleted. I just played stupid and he said if I could show him the how it worked he would pass me for that . I’m sure I could have easily made something up like it’s in the head and here is he hoses that feed it. So I have to make something look remotely like air injection. I also failed being 4x over on hc and a bit over on co . Idle was the worst. At 2500 rpm I was only over by 20% on hc and less for co . Some issues the car has are the fan clutch is stuck so it never warms up completely that doesn’t help I’m sure . I am going to smoke test it tomorrow to be 100% sure there is no vacuum leaks . I hear there is a way to adjust fuel trim at idle ? I will try that also after I fix the fan and any leaks . I was thinking about welding a Bolt in catalytic converter That goes in place of the resonator just for a emissions. Unless Someone knows of a direct Bolt in . At that point I think it will be pretty close if not passing . And I will of spent enough money to apply for the waiver. I got temp tags today and the lady there told me if I spend $715 at a shop which I work at lol , I can Be exempt from emissions for one cycle Which is five years for collectors plates. She also said that they really don’t check mileage which was the one thing keeping me from applying for collectors plates. You’re supposed to only drive 4500 miles a year.

Sheesh, maybe CA ain't so bad after all

I'm far from stock appearance under the hood as well, but they never even bother with that BS

OK, upper left hand corner in the attached photo shows you where the idle mixture screw is

Please note that this view is upside down

Good luck, ya know, adding a cat permanently might not be all that bad of an idea after all

Wow. EPA driven authoritarianism gone mad It's a near 40 YO car !!

I am just afraid the the car will destroy a cat because it runs rich all the time . Does the idle mixture screw turn that wheel or are they separate adjustments ?

Separate. The idle adjustment screw is only for idle. Tighter for richer I believe, loosen for more lean.

Thank you !

So I got it to pass today just by putting on the old thermal reactors, and using a electric air pump from a z3 at the junkyard. I ran a hose to the air injector rail and wired the air pump to key on power . The whole project was 50 dollars or so and took about an hour and a half to install the reactors and run the air pump wiring plumbing ect. Thank you for all your help . I am excited to start driving this thing more ! It needs a manual transmission.

Nice thing about AZ is if you can show them you have classic car insurance and the car is over 25 years old, you don't need smog. Also if you get into another county other than where the PHX Valley is located, no smog. My car is put back to full euro specs, so since my brother in law is building a home in one of those counties, one way or another I will escape smog.

Wow amazing, congrats on passing. Will you remove the thermal reactors and replace with normal exhaust manifolds now? Or leave it. Please post pics of your free car!