hey all -

im wondering whats possible to get away with during smog and what parts im gonna need to bring back to stock before i go in (ive got a long time, im just planning for what i should or shouldnt do to my car).

so far i have an invidia cat back and im gonna be installing my fujita cai soon. does the CAI or catback need to be CARB legal? i had an ebay CAI on my last car and i think it passed with it on, but i might have put the stock box back on, i dont remember.

im planning on getting a test pipe and a header. who makes CARB legal headers? and are test pipes always a fail at smog?

 

few things. yes you need a carb legal intake to pass the visual part of the smog. if your fujita doesnt have any dont install it yet. wait after your smog. as for the invidia catback yes, you have to remove it because as we all know those canons surely are loud. loud enough to make me say wtf while i drive with that set up.

as for the headers im not quite sure. i never made my way into it. as for test pipe. yes you do have to remove it. you have to put the stock cat on.

to make it clear, it is much better to put on your stock box, cat and mufflers before heading to smog. unless you want to fail.

 

make sure the CARB#'s match your car. For example, the DC header for S2000's fit both AP1 and AP2, but it is only SMOG legal for 00-03.

 

putting it back to stock is the easiest thing to do. CARB EO or not, the tester could give you a hard time about it regardless. Happened to one of our guys up in sac. CARB EO matched his car but they said it was "modified" still. Our guy is all legit but the shop didn't want to test his car. So he took it to another place.

So if you have the time (most of us procrastinate to smog our vehicles) you can argue with the shop but it's not really worth the hassle.

 

So here's the deal:

Exhaust (Cat back) is not an exhaust component, its non-deniable by a smog shop. (unless of course you're not passing the sniffer because of a faulty exhaust, exhaust leak, etc., but that's not inherently because of a modified exhaust, that's just a problem).

Cat, Intake, header must have CARB #'s.

- If your car is N/A and in healthy condition, then it should pass the sniffer regardless of your setup. Visual (Carb #) is another story. This of course is a tech by tech basis; some may miss it, some may purposefully skip it, but that's the exception, not the rule.

- Test pipes should NEVER passt smog

- Asura makes a 70mm and 3" HFC that has a CARB EO# on it

- Headers: Comptech, DC Sports make carb legal headers. None other that come to mind.

 

What you can get away with depends on how lazy the smog tech it. Because there are fines and jail time the smog tech could get for not doing the job right MOST of the time they find the non carb legal modifications.


whiteflash pretty much nailed it for what you will have to do to pass

 

Or just get a crooked smog

I passed with my 70mm T1R and testpipe... And that mofo is pretty loud!

 

I recently had my smog done with the same guy for the past 6 years. This time my CARB stickers were not enough. He stated that he needed to check the CARB documents as well per the documents from CARB which he showed me. Went home, printed docs from Comptech, and went back. Was a hassle but depends on your smog tech. I knew the guy and he remembered me but he did not want to risk being fined

 

how loud your car is does not affect smog

 

The smog tech is responsible for verifying that the CARB E.O. # on the modified part is for that part and car.

Personally I look up the E.O #'s on CARBs site and verify it myself. I would not trust a customer handing me paperwork (that can be easily altered) saying its a legal mod.