1. Can I safely say I'm not contributing to Global Warming and that no CO2/CO is coming out my exhaust?

2. I need to get my 85 300TD inspected/registered before I break it down for half year engine overhaul. It doesnt make sense to put a new exhaust on it yet--thats done after you put the exhaust back on. Will my hole in muffler pass inspection--I dont think it would be picked up by exhaust analyzer.

3. What gases come out exactly?

1) Burning fossil fuel results in the creation of water and CO2 when done perfectly. Since nothing is perfect there is also some amount of CO present although diesels are pretty good about that. Since air isn't just O2 there is also oxidation of the other components, mainly N2 which forms NOX (various oxides of Nitrogen). Oh.. and there is also unburned hydrocarbons (fossil fuel) coming out.

2) I have no idea what type of testing you will need. If it is safety related I presume they will find the hole in your muffler acoustically. The exhaust gas analyzer on a IM240 test bench can tell if you have a significant exhaust leak. It does this by measuring the amount of CO2 coming out (exactly in grams). It does this normally to detect a fraudulent test. In other words an engine with a certain displacement will pump an exact amount of gases out the tailpipe (predicted by the volumetric efficiency and the chemical equation HC + O2 = CO2 + H2O). The test looks at unburned HC, CO, and NOX for polutants and it looks at CO2 to verify that the probe was actually in a tailpipe (and in a pipe of a car with a certain sized engine).

3) Aside from whats is coming out above, Diesels are usually checked for soot (particulates).

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Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

Diesel engine-d cars in the Netherlands have to suffer a soot-test once a year. This means that the car has to do some 5000+rpm's for at least three periods of 4-5 seconds when the car is in its neutral (I don not know why our government came up with this disastrous idea, but...it has to be done (after the owner signed a paper that he is responsible for any engine damage caused by the soot-test).

All other out-coming gases are not of any importance.

greeting,

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1990 300SL-24
1993 C250D with a minor 600+k kilometer
www.MBenzNL.com(the Netherlands)