Hello all,

Wonderful community you have here, you all have already helped me tremendously. I've got a little problem here I was hoping for some help with.

My 1988 300E recently failed its smog test in a big way. Way over the emissions limit. The tech mentioned the ignition timing was set at 24 deg BTDC, while his book said it should be 9 degrees. Any idea what causes this?

In the interests of full disclosure, I will also mention that that I replaced the O2 sensor a few months ago, the car has days where it will not idle at all, so I'm going to check the OVP relay and fuel pump relay this weekend. I have the eha test harness on order. I admit to having turned the 3mm allen screw under the air cleaner, having very little idea of what I was actually doing. A friend told me to hook a DVM on duty cycle to pin 3 and adjust to 50%, turning the screw seemed to have very little effect, the closest I got was about 43% average, the numbers were all over the board, no consistent range.

I am committed to fixing this myself even if it costs me lots of $ in tools, I'm slowly picking up the make and model specific knowledge in this great forum. I insist on learning all this because I'm about to sell my Jeep Grand Cherokee so I can buy my wife a early '90s 300TE, which I will also have to maintain. (I am very experienced in building/repairing late '60s american hot rods.)

Thanks in advance,
Gebhard

Instead of using the DVOM, you can purchase a real Lambda tester for 300-400 dollars or so at Baum tools. Their site is Baumtools.com.

To pass the EMI, you will want to set it to 55% or so. I would think that the ignition timing would be OK> Since this is controlled by a computer (EZL controller), I have not seen the timing off on this engine.

__________________
Benzmac:
Donnie Drummonds
ASE CERTIFIED MASTER AUTO TECHNICIAN
MERCEDES SPECIALIST 11 YRS

Gebhard,
Are you experiencing any other problems with the car? Any idle issues? Power? Seems like 24tdc is indicative of other problems.
Regards,
Joel

__________________
Joel P. Davis
1992 500SEL