Just for thought how do you californians 1st generation 7's pass emission in Cali, im talking 79-83, 84's(carburated). I know the 85's started their fuel injection programs.

 

Just alittle correction. Carb'd were 79-85 12a and FI are 84-85 13b's.

As long as the engine is in tune and the emission equipment is working and cat not worn out they pass. Key is the converter.

I just recently had my 82 Gs with 67k and the original Cat on it go thru smog with no problem.

 

I have a 79 RX-7 and live in California. I passed the emissions tests but did the following first:

- get an oil change
- put in 2 to 3 bottles of STP gas treatment
- make sure you are using only low octane fuel -87 octane
- drive the car hard - 65 mph for about 30 minutes prior to testing. Get the engine hot so that it is burning a high percentage of emitted gases. Then drive in to the shop for the emissions test.

Assuming your parts are in order (exhaust system up to the manifold), you should be just fine.
Good luck.

 

thinks for the correction but I had an 83 with the 12a motor in it, after 300000 miles it went. I ended up replacing the motor with a 13b carb'd. Thats why I said that above, sorry.....did you replace the header on yours......I dont remeber if the 1st gen's had more then 1 cat. I bought my 2nd gen in 2001 and sold my first gen then.

 

thanx guys me an my wife/daughter are gonna be moving to cali(wifes from cali)so just trying to figure out how im gonna paass emission

 

BTW I will be replacing my midpipe for a 3-way CARB cat that I just purchased and recieved a week ago. I hope I should be fine.

 

What do you mean Header?

1st gens' have 2 precats and then your main cat. There have been alot threads on smog tests.
The advice we all give is the following.
Make sure the oil is fresh. The air cleaner is good. Car is in tune. Meaning fresh plugs, cap and rotor in good shape. Timing dead on. Run some good fuel system cleaner thru.
Wires of course in good working order. All emission equipment hooked up and working.
You ae replacing the cat so you don't have to worry about that. And the cart is the biggest portion that will cause you to fail. The day of your appointment take the car for a drive 30-40
minutes before your appointment on the freeway to get it up to operating temp. When you get to your appointment, do not shut the engine off. Let it idle and heat soak so the cat stays hot. Set to go.
On the 13b motor you are running. What carb is on her?

 

thanx guys, Im running fuel injection-(86 2nd gen). But my 1st gen that I owned I replaced the 12a with a 13b carburated. I think I was running a small holley 4bbl at the time. Just wanted to get an idea of what you 1st gen were doing about the CARB emissions out there.

 

If you wanna smog a car in CA,you pretty much have to play by the rules.A stock rotary will pass easily so long as its healthy and in tune.
Theres no way in hell a header and/or Holley equipped rotary is going to pass.That said,its not impossible to pass CA smog in a modified rotary.....you just have to know what mods you can get away with and which ones wont affect emissions.

A header doesnt really affect smog output,but it violates CA regulation if it doesnt have a CARB expemption tag,and I know of no rotary companies that bothered to get CARB certs on their headers.Plus,most headers are long enough to delete the precats,which is a no-no in this state. SCC proved a header and good main cat will pass CA smog when they upgraded an 82 12A and it passed easily,but it would not have passed the visual inspection unless the smgo tech was blind.

An MSD direct fire system will make some power,eliminate the leading stock ignitor and even clean up the idle a bit.Its totally smog legal since it doesnt affect the timing and it has CARB expemtion.Just be sure the put the sticker under the hood.

A light flywheel will also give you a boost in engine response without any smog related detriment.

A little porting is OK,so long as you dont go overboard.I have a streetport on my S5 TII engine and it passes no problem.Granted,a stock TII port is 75% of a streetport from the factory,and EFI helps to keep it clean.Any worth-while porting on a carbed engine will probably push you past the limit of smog legality.

On TII swaps,you can also get away with a turbo upgrade provided you dont go overboard.A hybrid T04 will squeeze into the stock location and be identical appearing to the stock turbo while providing a fair bit of performance upgrade.Of course,youd need to have a BAR certified TII engine swap already, for this mod to be relevent.

 

so do I get in touch with the company that makes my header to see if its excempted in cali. I dont have the stock front cats anymore, did away with them back in 2001. Does anyone know if any of these companies make the header for the s4's anymore. Theres a few here that are excempted from CARB laws- read these please.

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/aftermk...rmktdevice.php

 

Lucky me, I have many friends...so I am smog-legal no matter what.

 

There are hundreds of CA expemted headers out there,but I dont know of any rotary specific ones.......that doesnt mean they dont exist,but Ive never seen any that were,yet.
If there are,the company will usually tout that fact to help sales and itll be totally obvious since the header must have a placard affixed to it that bears the CARB number.

 

There is no known Carb exempt Header for the Rx7's.
You will need to put the stock exhaust back on. That means Stock exhaust manifold and cats.
Since you have a S4 injection system you will also need to have the Egr valve on the motor and functioning.