Howell Throttle Body Fuel Injection (TBI) Installation

Post Installation Notes

Smog Test Results
01/31/05
Well, today was my smog test and my CJ passed the snif test with flying colors.... but the smog nazis still failed me. Why you might ask? Well, after about an hour of close scrutiny and interogating, this is what i was told (and i'm not making any of this up):

1. my check engine light was not properly labled "check engine" (just so you know, i reused my old factory "check carb" lamp on the dash).

2. there was a vacuum plug on the last port of the CTO that was supposed to be open to atmosphere. (i simply forgot to remove it)

3. the hose connecting my PCV breather to the air intake was a radiator hose and not a fuel line hose.

4. my charcoal canister had a crack on one of the ports that i fixed with a little JB weld to which they said "gluing a port is not an acceptable repair even if it works."

5. my idle was running at about 950-1000 RPM and needed to be at 750 RPM.

Thanks to the help of John Strenk, all these have now been fixed and I will go in for another appointment on 02/15/05. Wish me luck.

Smog Test Results
02/15/05
Well, I went in for my smog re-test today at 7am. Worried about being late, i left early in the morning and i unfortunatly showed up about 10 min too early. Worse still, the nazis ended up being 10 mins late. It was in the upper 40's this morning and my engine got a whole 20 mins to cool off anyway, the chief nazi remembers my CJ, pisses and moans about badly my exhaust smelled at an idle the last time around and that it was a surprise how well my engine cleaned up under load. Anyway, he has his new student fire up the engine and then goes for a walk to who knows where. No joke, about 10 mins later he comes back talking on the phone to God know who and for what reason but in the mean time, my engine is chugging along. 15 mins now have gone by and unconvinced that my TBI is really doing it's job, he decided to plug his DLP reader up to the ECM and do some checking. Low and behold, my engine all of a sudden throws a check engine light... imagine that?! Well, right there and then, the jackoff cuts the engine and tells me that i failed my inspection. When I asked him what the error code was, he tells me that my engine is running too rich. So the student fires her back up, pulls it out of the garage and goes to park it when I noticed that the check engine light is now off. Seeing this, I ask if I could be tested again now that the light is off and he tells me that it's no good and that the computer already has me down with a check engine light and the best he could do is void my test allowing me another chance.By this time, I'm really pissed off but don't have a clue as to what to do.....

Anyway, so I head back home which is over an hour away in bumper to bumper traffic when it hits me.... try to get my Jeep smogged at a regular check station. Show the paper work from the time before and say that you missed your re-test appointment and can I just get it done here. Need I say, that's exactly what I did and after a little persuading..... I passed smog with flying colors.... again!