Exhaust Emission from Burned Oil

[CJH]

S2000DRIVER made the statement that the catalytic converter does not remove emissions caused by burned oil. I was curious about emissions testing. The part of PA I live in does not currently require emissions testing, so I dont know much about it. I think we are going to be subject to some kind of testing next year.

Is it true that a catalytic converter does not remove exhaust emissions from burning oil?

Is it true that burning oil will not poison or foul a catalytic converter?

Can a car with a good catalytic converter fail emissions testing due to burning oil? If so, replacing the catalyst would not do any good, right?

 

[S2000driver]

I just read this, confirms that Phosphorous is bad. Just how much phos does the latest oils contain? If none, than we can state that oil does not foul the catalytic converter :wink:

"Most converters should go 100,000 miles or more under normal operating conditions. But some don’t make it that far because of contamination or heat damage. If an engine burns oil, phosphorus in the oil can contaminate the catalyst. There’s no way to remove the contamination, so replacing the converter is the only repair option."

[ September 22, 2003, 09:44 PM: Message edited by: S2000driver ]

 

[CJH]

Ya, I knew phosphorus is bad for cats. If you look through the UOAs, an average for phosphorus seems to be about 1,000 ppm. Every oil seems to have it. Heavy duty oils, high viscosity oils and diesel oils seem to have more phosphorus, generally over 1,000 ppm. The low viscosity oils with the API starburst have slightly less than 1,000 ppm. I think it is there becuase it is a key ingredient of ZDDP.

Is phosphorus the only thing in the oil that can foul the catalytic converter?

quote:

---

Originally posted by S2000driver:
I just read this, confirms that Phosphorous is bad. Just how much phos does the latest oils contain? If none, than we can state that oil does not foul the catalytic converter :wink:

"Most converters should go 100,000 miles or more under normal operating conditions. But some don’t make it that far because of contamination or heat damage. If an engine burns oil, phosphorus in the oil can contaminate the catalyst. There’s no way to remove the contamination, so replacing the converter is the only repair option."

---

[ September 22, 2003, 10:06 PM: Message edited by: CJH ]

 

[Gary Allan]

The situation can occur when the oil begins to volitilize in a normally non-oil burning engine. It becomes part of the combustion process and adds unburned hydrocarbons to the intake stream that are not easily burned. It was really bad when the GM line used an extractor tube piped into the exhaust for excess blowby. Now all blowby gasses are induced into the intake stream ..either above or below the throttle body.

I'm in a PA emissions county (Montgomery) and my Caravan burns oil at idle (valve seals). I have the original cat and have only had to retard the timing to pass the "enhanced" (dyno) emissions test due to NOX emissions. The DC line doesn't use an EGR valve and instead uses valve overlap and injector timing to leave enough spent material in the combustion chamber to cool the process.