No, zero is expected. A 145k mile 21 year old car a slightly positive STFT and LTFT would not be unusual. A weak fuel pump or fuel pressure regulator could cause this. But the numbers won’t throw a CEL.
@Mustangman - you hit the nail on the head!
I was just getting to the fuel pressure regulator when I called it a day.
I was also smelling gas when I start the car.
I still need to get to the bottom of the issue and get the car smoked! Its throwing high NO.
When you say “slightly positive” - did you have a value in mind?
A LTFT between +25% and -25% there will not be a CEL set. A +6% STFT or LTFT is a small number that should not cause an error light. If, however the STFT can show short term trends that be used to determine a problem. See attached article.
Why do you want a smoke test? That is usually used to determine evap leaks. You can test the fuel pressure regulator by removing the vacuum line on the regulator when the engine is running. If it squirts fuel, it is bad!
Here is a listing of causes for high HC, CO and NO.
I don’t thing the low STFT you are reading is your NOX problem. If I remember some of your earlier posts correctly, I’d say the cat converter is shot and that is your NOX problem.
To greatly simplify the first article in this post, the computer has a graph stored of what an ideal engine will use for the pulse width of the injectors for all the various loads the engine will encounter when in closed loop. Small differences from engine to engine during manufacture and as engines age and wear will cause the actual pulse width to vary from the graph.
Many things cause variation from cylinder wear, tolerances in the O2 sensors, tolerances in the MAF or MAP sensors, coolant temp and coolant temp sensors and wear of the injectors themselves. I would be very suspicious of an engine that stayed at 0% over a long time period. I would think that something isn’t working right, mainly because the closed loop system is a hunting system.
A hunting system constantly creates an error, senses it and corrects it, maintaining a very small deviation from ideal. This especially for STFT. Less so for LTFT.