Secondary air readiness STILL not ready for CA smog after over 500 miles

[geoff]

There were several posts on the topic, but after reading through all of them, I don't think I ever found a definitive solution as to fixing the secondary air readiness. About a month ago, I started driving to get my '01 986 smogged and got a CEL. Code reader showed it as a vario cam bank 1 problem, and after some diagnostics, it ended up being the actuator (which also includes a new solenoid), which my mechanic at the dealer replaced. My car drove better than ever, but after driving around for several days, when I went to get it smogged two readiness indicators weren't set. I tracked down the drive cycle description, followed that many times, and every time I checked the secondary air readiness still wasn't set.

 

I made a trip back to the dealer today, head mechanic confirmed the secondary air system is functional by turning it on with Porsche tester, no fault codes showing, but still couldn't get secondary air readiness to set. He disconnected the battery, hoping clearing everything would solve the problem, so I drove around doing some errands, and by the time I got home everything was good to go except secondary air readiness. So I still can't take it in to get smogged.

 

I'm going to drop it back off at the dealer later in the week so they can do a cold start in the morning. Any suggestions as to what is known to solve the problem since all the prior posts on this subject?

[JFP in PA]

Some of the 986 models were plagued by incredibly long runs to rest the I/M Readiness triggers in the DME; hundreds of miles after all faults were correctly repaired were not uncommon.

[geoff]

On 3/14/2023 at 9:46 AM, JFP in PA said:

Some of the 986 models were plagued by incredibly long runs to rest the I/M Readiness triggers in the DME; hundreds of miles after all faults were correctly repaired were not uncommon.

No kidding! But over 750 miles seems a bit excessive.

 

I was going to take my car back to the dealer and leave it so the head tech could do a cold start in the morning and see what's going on. When I started to go out there this afternoon, I tried revving the engine to 2800 RPM for 2 1/2 minutes with the defroster on, instead of letting it idle to start the drive cycle. Then plugged in my cheapie OBD tester, and lo and behold, all readiness indicators were set, including the secondary air injection. I didn't go out and buy a lottery ticket, but I stopped by my usual smog check place, and all readiness indicators were still set, no CEL showing, and my car passed the smog test, so I'm good for 2 more years.

 

I went by the dealer afterwards, my service writer said there's nothing for them to do, then I chatted with my mechanic for a while. He hadn't heard about this, but figured at 2800 RPM there's a lot more air flowing through the system, which gets the onboard computers to recognize readiness.