5-Gas analyzer readings on 3 cars, please help

I have seen this type of behavior on a car with a leaky or partly clogged fuel injector. The pintle on the injector head gets just enough carbon on it that it never really seals off when it's supposed to be fully closed. It leaks fuel into the cylinder during the exhaust stroke and that vaporized fuel gets to the cat.

Not that any Ferrari owner cares about fuel economy - but I would be willing to bet it's the worst of the three cars.

All of your tests thus far have gone after the air side, now it's time to check the fueling.

 

+1 -- your exhaust gas measurements at idle don't indicate what's happening with the fuel delivery "when doing a spirited drive" (i.e., at higher fuel delivery rates).

 

HC is a "tad" high-more fuel-which also means "cooler"
this tends to coincide with the elevated NOx readings(post cat)-lower temps mean cat might be "drowning in fuel"(red hot) which explains the elevated NOx numbers, at idle: its called "rich NOx"-common in cold bag for KE-Jetronic cars-not LH....
FWIW-this however means little without dynamic gas readings-IMO/experience
NOx numbers go up with heat, the "after cat" numbers are above zero-where all other cars'examples' are at zero-this suggests that: you are far enough out of stochiometric that the catalyst's gram per cubic foot of "loading" on the aluminum oxide wash coat, simply is being over taxed, so to speak.
The catalysis is clearly working-the tip off is the red color of the can: the catalysis simply has more fuel than what it is designed to cope with, resulting in a barbecue briquet type of "cat fire' starting to happen...this will degrade the wash coat(fractures of the alumina wash coat-which is there to increase the surface area for catalysis wash coat by 600X!)...this is a different type of monolith degradation than if this is a "spiral wound metallic" substrate....

IF you have tested thoroughly with a smoke machine the integrity of your exhaust from the manifold gaskets to the tips, and there are NO leaks, then the ONLY way that it can get "RED" is from TOO much FUEL....The added fuel will be used as fuel despite insufficient oxidant, as the thermal mass of the substrate will behave like an ingot super heated-again, the NOx tends to support this-I am curious as to the eventual solution here....excessive fuel pressure and or leaking nozzles are the likely culprits(i assume that NTC values are in range and that cold start nozzle is NOT dribbling fuel, and obviously, the sensors in the gas stream are functioning properly.......) It is very unlikely-IMO-that the primary load sensor is at fault(heated plat wire, or Wheatstone bridge), the numbers just are too "good"...

its the "red" cat color that's the "red flag" to me here...

 

Something to be careful of, is that the readings are an average of four cylinders for each side but don’t give any idea of how each cylinder is performing. A single cylinder may be running hotter due to a lean condition caused by a blocked injector and cause higher cat temps. A simple way to check if you have access is to use an infrared temp gun and try and measure each cylinder exhaust at a consistent point to see if there are any differences. Another option is a dyno run with thermo couples on each cylinders exhaust. Colder is generally too much fuel, hotter is a lean condition. Or you can flow test each injector.

 

There isn't a problem with the cars at idle, those are normal readings. All those readings are normal. The one thing you will need to include is the current data readings from the ECU. You could have all the cars read normal at the tailpipe but if the fuel trims are at limits of the problem car there may be an underlying issue that is within the adjustment parameters of the ECU at IDLE but not above idle. Both Cats get Red? What is the service history, I would suspect something common to both banks, coolant temp although I suspect that would show high co at idle, fuel pressure or if someone has done the major service cam timing has been incorrectly set, remember the ECU only monitors Exhaust camshaft the intake can be set wrong and it wont flag any codes. I would suspect cam timing would show up as high HC at idle though. Any chance the upstream and downstream O2 got plugged in incorrectly?

 

I slept on this a tad and wondered if the cam belts had been done recently?
If cam timing is off slightly, there will be an overlap issue-possibly...
This ALSO will cause tons of un-burned charge into the cat, also causing the "red hot" appearing case for the catalyst...
Since this happens only to one side....

 

Did it do this before you did the service work, specifically the timing belts?

 

assuming that all of the principle load sensors and actuators-excepting injectors-are all operating within spec, and the cam timing is within range of the plus/minus degree requirements(paint marks on wheels and number of teeth counted is NOT the same as a 1/2 MM shim clearance[solid lifters, or, the spec required for hydraulics] with a TDC of certainty within 1 degree or so based on piston rock-while rotating until either shim starts to spin-off closing ramp, or starting to lock up-beginning to open on the open ramp, coinciding with a degree notation for EACH "event horizon"...then you don't have "degreed cam timing"-per Ferrari. Factory actually uses a three gauge vacuum tester with green, yellow and red lights{this seen at 550 school at factory})
AND, assuming that the system is gas tight from the exhaust manifold to the joints at the END of the catalysts....

then there are precious few ways in which excess fuel can enter the system-as I said: a defective NTC can indicate that ambient/engine coolant temp is too cool, it will fatten up the mixture "thinking" its still in warm up...you have eliminated the oxidant as a factor...IF there are no codes in the network-say for instance an error in the "evap system/purge" which could allow for oxidant entry from an "unplugged line"(major service mishap-It's happened to all of us...?)then the list gets real short quite quickly.....this list also has excluded the can variator system as faulty or sticky-USUALLY there is a fault code(s) associated with malfunctioning variation of cam advance(this would explain the entire problem)but there would be codes-yes?

The ECU is an EEPROM file type: is there ANY chance that the ECU files have been "reflashed?" These "reflashes" are generally a mild injector pulse width increase, and a bumping of timing: a degree or so here and there....but, more aggressive files can cause more headaches for street cars than they are worth-especially if not done on a chassis dyno WITH a CVS analysis(Horiba, Beckman, etc)

What has caught my interest in all of this-and as opposed to the other posters-I was a catalyst engineer in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s(the patent for the TWC in ALL cars was invented by my dad's best friend whilst they were both at: the Office of Naval Intelligence at MIT in the early 1960s, for an application which had NOTHING to do with cars-the law of unintended consequences..
The "science" falls under the little understood sub-topical inorganic chemistry department of: finely particulated colloidal platinum catalysis-within the 10-25 angstrom spectra, a somewhat exotic and dark/voodoo curriculum...not at ALL well understood, even today. I was experimenting with cerium dioxide for use as an additive "oxygen" bank for "cold bag" in 1983....I actually, REALLY know what I'm talking about on this topic.

IF your injectors test out fully operational/functional and without fault-there HAS to be something missing....SOMETHING is either allowing excess fuel, and or excess oxidant into the gas stream-simple as that. All that remains is the what, which will be told when you determine the where-IMO
Honestly, this is first year college chemistry....BASED on your description of system conditions and your testing results....

 

The compression numbers you posted seem on the low side by about 30 psi. Usually I see between 160 and 180.

Does the car lack power in comparison to the others you have tested?

 

Check the part numbers and location of your O2 sensors. I am suspecting they have been installed reversed or they are aftermarket O2's that may not be correct. Many O2 sensors have a bias either just bellow or just above stotiometric. If you have one that is biased just bellow stotiometric rather then just above this same thin can occur.

I would also take a snapshot of the fuel trims, o2 sensor readings when the concern is occurring. If we are rich enough to get a red catalyst those numbers are likely still saying the car is lean and the computer is just trying to compensate. Just confirming its both banks that have the red catalyst.

 

360 has an OBDII port, get an OBDII reader and get some live data while you are doing "spirited driving" that will give you an idea of what the conditions are when the problem occurs.
I use a Bosch 1050 which pairs with my cell phone. If you have a passenger, they can watch during the drive, if you don't have a friend, you can start recording before the drive, stop recording, save the live data and review it over a beer.

 

If you have a friend and want to record the data, have them start the recording when it gets interesting and stop it before you shut of the car.

 

FWIW-Ferrari doesn't manufacture O2 sensors,,,most likely either Bosch or Denso or possibly NGK,,,,
OE bagged parts just means higher cost-so long as you correctly cross reference it to manufacturers serial numbers...then "generic/OE" parts are just fine and do NO DAMAGE/incorrect readings...these are either zirconium tipped dipoles, or, "air mass" meters....for lack of a clearer functional description...

 

You continued descriptions of your issue point to a cam timing problem.