Has anyone passed a smog test with headers, high flow-cats, cams and heads and long tube headers.....IN CALIFORNIA!!!!! ya i know it seems impossible, but if it is tangible than i would like to know any tricks you did,

Or if this isn't possible, is there anyway to "bribe" a smog technician to get him to sign off the car? Or any cool dudes around that you would reccomend??

Ya i know it sounds like im trying to re-arrange the planets, but i just don't want to drive around in an illegal car......

 

So, you want to bribe people to drive around in your illegal car but don't want to drive around in your illegal???

Now that the irony is over, living the CA must suck for that very reason. Hope you get some help with this.

 

haha ya preety much, it deffinitally sucks out here even the police are starting to crack down, pulling people over if they think the car is too loud. it's just stupid............

 

I don't get that. Everyone always wants to go to California for whatever reason, but I hear a lot of negatives, and I was in San Diego for a week last July and it never got above 75. Brrr for SoCal for summer! We got some wind once in a while, but I will stay here!

Back to the topic, I don't think you could go too wild in the heads and cam dept, and have someone tune it for emissions, and then retune later. Maybe get 2 ECM's? Just a thought. I don't know that much about cal emissions regs...

 

Im not sure how aggressive your head and cam package is, but my advice would:
-ensure you have good plugs/wires/clean airfilter
-be to book your smog test early in the morning so that you are the first person in. spend 30 min hammering, prior to your test and bring the car in immediately afterwards
-run sunoco 94 (high ethanol content)

While I dont have heads and cam, i have high flow cats, headers and madz28 tune and i passed with flying colours.

 

LTs will not pass visual. Moving the location of the cats is illegal. Even if you bribed someone it would still be illegal and you could be ticketed.

 

Here are the basics.

LT's will fail visual (like greed4speed said)

Shorties are all that will pass. They are worthless on 01/02 models. 98-00 LS1's will pick up about 5 hp with them though.

Heads make no difference. Get whatever you like as long as they compliment the cam.

Cam needs to be no bigger then 224/224 114 lsa. With a good tune this cam is known to pass emmisions. I think a few have gotten slightly bigger cams to pass with a great tune but that's as big as I would go.

As far as bribes go you are taking a risk. If they accept the bribe then your GTG. If not then not only can you get fined but I believe arrested as well. My advice if your considering this is to find a local speed shop that works on LS1's and buy something from them. Once you're a customer, ask them if they know any places where you can get an emission test done that might pass LT's with a catted Y. They may or may not be able to point you to a specific place/person. I'm sure you'd have to grease the palm but at least you would know it's gonna end well.

It might help if you hint that you'll buy the LT's from them if they do know a way to pass

If not then you're no worse off and you stay away from LT's. Good luck.

 

wow im really in some deep **** here. alright thanks darren your plan sounds a lot better than the one i had in mind lol. ya ill get out there and get some info from my local shops.....

 

I'm in the same boat as you and I'm starting to think just paying someone to make it pass makes the most sense.

 

Awhile ago a place in the 510 area got busted for running illegal passes for SMOG tests. The first thing that was taken? The list of customers that got their cars smogged there. I don't remember which paper it was in, but I can dig up a link if you want.

You're taking a big chance by bribing, best to just get it SMOG'd legally, even if it means making modifications to do so.

 

Yup, Cali doesn't screw around with smog stuff. Back when i had this POS '78 Datsun beater car, i had a really good friend that did smogs. The car failed smog and he refused to fib it for me. That's some serious stuff, the tech can get HAMMERED if they find out and the shop can be shut down. I was born and raised in Cali, i've only been in Alaska for a couple of years now.

 

I realize they come down hard on the stations for that stuff, but am curious what happens to the customer. I don't think there is near the risk to the guy getting his car smogged as there is for the guy smogging the car. Anyone able to shed some light on this?

 

Considering somebody could loose their job etc over lieng about your illegal car...not too suprised most people wouldn't do it.

Do they actually roller test all OBD-II cars in cali also? In MD they just hook it up to a computer and if your codes are cleared you will pass.

 

ya you get roll tested, but i asked this question a while ago and already solved all my problems.

Im just gonna get a cheatr cam to go with my cat-back and intake and ill be fine

 

Actually, '00 was the first year of the new header design on the fbodies. 01-02's have a different cam and LS6 intake. Just FYI.