Hygoog

So I just felt like sharing. I went to smog my 1989 rx7 gtu s5 yesterday. It passed the tail pipe test but failed visual. The smog tech failed me because my idle is at 1050rpm, upside down catalytic convertor, and my EGR valve is missing...I got home and started going through the manual and found out that the 1989-91 didn't come with EGR valves. So the idiot tech failed me for something I never had! Damn I hate California!

NCross

iTrader: (18)

Emissions testers are not very intelligent. Upside down cat??? Move.

Hygoog

Yea I contacted my brother in law, he used to be a smog tech and he was like what the heck. The Tech didn't know what he's doing. Yup! I'm moving to Mississippi next month anyways so I will just put the car on non-op at the moment. No more smog checks for me!

2jzfc

I'm in Missouri and we have no smog laws at all here, if I need an inspection I go to a state inspector. They check to make sure I have working headlights, blinkers, tail lights, and horn. All those things work I pass, love it. But I hear Oklahoma doesn't even have inspections period...

clokker

iTrader: (2)

To be fair, your experience does not prove the law is stupid but rather that sometimes the implementation is.
A different tech, a different location and you may have breezed through, no problem.

Hygoog

That's awesome. I think it's the same with Mississippi. It's so hard modifying cars in California.

RXSpeed16

iTrader: (41)

Yes, the visual test is redundant and silly. But it is there because people like us would be clever enough to make it pass at the exact test specs (See: VW deisel cheat). So I guess we should take it as a compliment?
If he's been out of the game for more than a couple years, it's very different now. Techs tend to fail anything questionable, especially pre-OBDII. If they're caught bending the rules for a complete stranger, they face thousands in fines or even losing their certification. Would you?

As for your issues, you have a free re-test and you can:
-Take the printed page from the FSM. Probably take both S4 and S5 diagrams and show him yours doesn't have an EGR. The S5 is an oddball as a 90's car without an EGR.
-Your idle has to be 750 +- 25. Turn the **** on your intake to lower it to that range. If you can't get it that low, fix your vacuum leak, unplug the BAC, etc
-The stock cat can't be installed upside down. The split air pipe feed would be in the wrong place. It's either an aftermarket cat (probably not legal) or put the stock cat on the correct way.

California is great for driving these types of cars. Why make these easy fixes and enjoy it while you're here?

Hygoog

Yea that's true. I remember smogging my 1990 Eclipse GSX and the smog tech failed me visual because it has a kn intake filter. I went to another smog place and the guy said as long as I passed the tail pipe he doesn't really care.

jjwalker

Nope, Oklahoma does not and here is why...

To get Federal highway funding, oklahoma did have an inspection process, but the state was greedy. So you paid $14 for the inspection but the business owner inspecting your car was only getting $3 for his time. As an autotech I charge $85 an hour and there is NO WAY I would spend 15-20 minutes inspecting a vehicle for $3. It caused a situation where nobody could find a place to get their car inspected so everyone drove around with inspection. Finally, Oklahoma said **** it, and abolished the law and lost the federal money.

Texas is actually on the same path now. It used to be $39.50 to inspect your car, Texas would get about 30% of that, but hey, still making a buck. They changed it last year to where you pay either $7 or $14 to the inspection place and Texas rapes of your money when you go to register your car. For example, I paid $7 to the inspection man, went to the Tax office to register and paid the rest of the money I would have normally paid the inspection man directly to the state.

I hope Texas goes the way of Oklahoma, and from the looks of it, it may. Most places now will only do the OBD test and don't have the Dyno for the ASM test and the places that do have the dyno, wont fix them when they break as there is no incentive.

The place I go to, they saw my car and said "we can't do asm, the dyno is broke" and I told them it was just safety and they said "okay, no prob". While the dude was going through his thing I was asked if they planned on fixing the dyno and he said "Would you sped $5,000 dollars to fix a dyno that will give you only $14 per car?".

I wouldn't and I don't blame him.

TonyD89

iTrader: (10)

This is not exactly true. If you live in a Class (it's either A or 1, I don't remember) county you have to smog. I live in the STL metro area so they are the actual city of Saint louis, STL county, St. charles county, and I think Jefferson, Warren, and Franklin. The other place you have to smog are the areas around Kansas City which I have no clue about.

The good thing is it's computer hook-up only, no treadmill or idle/run test and no visual. If the guy opens the hood and things look really different he can be a dick. That's when you need to have "a guy".



The safety inspection is a joke.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

weirdly in CA we have a crazy smog, but no other inspection at all. its even to the point where my friend bought a wrecked car, smogged it and it was totally legal, here. i've seen cars without doors, bumpers, etc etc.

the other odd thing is that we can't have a safety inspection; what if you check the tail lights, and they work, and then it doesn't work tomorrow, and causes an accident. i don't know about the rest of the world, but here that is obviously the inspectors fault, so he goes to jail.

TonyD89

iTrader: (10)

It wouldn't happen here. The safety inspection is a gimme from the state to the poor bastard that has to do it. OK, in other words, they get to find stuff they can charge you for to fix and get your cert. Trust me, they can try hard.

Loose tie rod? A little play in that ball joint? I'm sorry ma'am, your wipers need to be replaced (at a nice mark-up, of course), that rusty exhaust, I think I found a hole in it. Those brakes are too thin, etc...

clokker

iTrader: (2)

I once failed DC safety inspection because the 1964 Morgan's reverse lights "didn't work".
I pointed out that the Morgan DID NOT HAVE reverse lights and in fact, never had.
I only prevailed because they couldn't find anything about a Morgan that said it was supposed to have them.

The way the law is (was?) written in Virginia, it didn't specifically say you had to have turn signals, it said that they had to work. If you removed them entirely, you were fine.

2jzfc

Didn't know that about STL, I'm originally from KC and never had any smog testing, and now live in Springfield and we don't have smog down here either. Can't you just go to a different county to do the inspection?

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

still woulda failed for high idle, the other stuff was bogus.

never heard of an upside down cat, i didn't even know there was a right side up.... there is an inlet and outlet though, so technically you could be failed for it being backwards, but not wrong side up.


glad i don't have to deal with inspections or smog, i just drive, instead of wasting money and my life waiting in another line at some government office just in order to live my life.

KansasCityREPU

iTrader: (9)

Kansas City and the surrounding suburbs only require a safety inspection. We have no smog testing. I didn't know that the St. Louis required smog.

ACR_RX-7

iTrader: (1)

In general, no. You are required to get tested based on where YOU live.

I live in Washington state and I am a licensed emission specialist. Our laws are that you get a sniff test if your car is 1995 and older. 1996 and newer gets an OBD2 scan and if you fail, you have to get it fixed OR pay an authorized emission specialist $150 minimum in diagnosis/repair to fix the problem. The issue is, most repairs are over $150 and diagnosis is often times more than that. What you end up getting is people who only want a waiver and only spend the minimum to get their tabs.

I had a woman who brought her Civic in over the course of 6 years, that's three test cycles. She failed for a bad oxygen sensor every time. She was too cheap to replace the sensor and had us charge her $150 every two years to tell her that the O2 sensor was bad. She could have had us install a new sensor and PASS emissions for around $250.

A failed emissions test will show up on a CarFax report as well, so that is something to consider depending on the age of the vehicle. Also, in my state 25 year old vehicles are exempt and 2009 vehicles and newer are exempt. Any hybrid that gets over 50 mpg, so the Prius and the Insight, are also exempt.


Now, since I have to go in for annual training about the state and federal emissions program, let me offer some insight. Just because your car is exempt in your state or municipality, does not mean that it is legal to modify your car in any way that can affect emissions. Federal emissions laws prohibit the removal of catalytic converters, air pumps, engine swaps, aspiration conversions (in general), and any other changes that can affect emissions. I'm not a fan of some of the implementation of the laws or interpretation. There are plenty of instances where you can effectively and efficiently improve the tailpipe emissions of a car by modifying it in some way. Most emission test stations will let you slide as long as you pass the tailpipe. They really don't care what is under the hood, provided you pass.

This past year, however, they have had an emphasis of tampered emissions equipment. Anything that is missing or altered from stock is considered tampering. One example is the K&N cold air intake. All the Honda boys have them. They don't appreciably make an impact on tailpipe emissions, but if you do not have a CARB sticker on the part with the part number also printed on the CARB sticker AND the receipt for when you bought the part, you have failed emissions for tampering. A bit draconian, but that is how bureaucracy operates. Also, reverting your car back to stock has no limit at all on money spent towards waiver, so your SR20 swapped Nissan 240 will not get a waiver for failed emissions because of the engine swap. Unlike California and some other states, you can not perform an engine swap legally in this state that will pass emissions.

ALL MY1996 and Newer vehicles must pass the OBDII test including a bulb check.
Except the cars I listed above.

ALL Cars registered geographically in a zone which requires emissions must take the tests after the car reaches 5 years of age.

Cars older than 25 years do not need emissions tests regard less of their registered location, but must still conform to EPA laws (yeah, right. No one cares.)

As far as swap laws go, no one in the state pays attention to it, but the basic rules are;
1. The donor engine must be from the same make of vehicle. (meaning you are not supposed to be allowed to swap a Chevrolet V8 into your Toyota Pickup.
2. The donor engine must be from the same OR newer model year. (cannot donate a 04STi into a 07RS)
3. The donor engine must be of the same displacement or less.


The only vehicles that I am aware of being 100% exempt from ANY emissions modification is 1968 and OLDER vehicles. Those cars did not have any emissions equipment at all, so nothing to tamper with.

The first emissions control device was the PCV valve. Fun fact!

PinkRacer

We have safety inspections here, which includes taking off the wheels and checking condition of brakes, plus lights, horn, check for major rust issues (which can be a problem here), etc. No smog though, thank God.

Anything 1991 and earlier isn't required to have a Cat here, so mine has none.

We do have a requirement for daytime running lights though, and since my rx7 doesn't have them, I have retrofitted LED fog lights. Otherwise, I'd have to run with the low beam headlights on all the time.

TonyD89

iTrader: (10)

Thanks for the clarification. Yes the surrounding suburban counties around STL are graded and when one is considered first class, you have to smog. When first instituted they used to do a run/treadmill test but now they just hook to your computer. Only '95 and later have to be tested.

I think the whole rating testing is all EPA fed stuff forced upon us because of air quality and had no voluntary local input, which I believe CA does.

Look at a map of Saint Louis sometimes. The fed seems to forget that there's like five or six highways that all come together around the city and are widely used by people going from one part of the US to another, like semi trucks.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

in CA our engine swap laws are slightly different. we are supposed to do the engine swap in accordance with the rules below, and then go see the referee and they will look it over and certify it.

1. the donor engine has to be the same model year or newer than the car. so an FD engine into an FC is ok, but an FD engine in an Rx8 is not.
2. the donor engine needs to have been EPA certified. so the FD engine in the FC is ok, because the FD was sold here, but the SR20-DET is actually not legal here at all, because it was never sold here. the police really cracked down on the S13/S14's and basically if you were driving one without being a secretary, you got pulled over and were just given a ticket to go see the smog referee. there was also some point where the officers had pictures of the KA and SR's so they knew what to look for
3. the donor engine must be from the same vehicle class, so car engine to car, truck to truck. if you put a truck engine in a car, its not legal.

TonyD89

iTrader: (10)

Nope. Test has to be done in the county you live in.

ACR_RX-7

iTrader: (1)

That is one thing that does blow me away about California emissions laws. They have the tightest restrictions on damn near everything, but provided you follow the above, an engine swap is ok.

I used the SR swap as an example, but a VQ or a VH swap in a Nissan is still illegal up here. The one that chaps my hide is the V8 swap into an RX7. A good running LS swap is much cleaner burning than a 13B, but the state doesn't see it that way.

At least we don't have emission checkpoints by police officers.

RotaryEvolution

iTrader: (30)

the checkpoints are voluntary, if an officer forces you to the side of the road and tells you you must take the test then report it to CARB.

most people do not realize that they are voluntary, because the officers do not specify this, or even know it themselves as they are led to believe they can forcibly pick a car at random and make them do the test. got news for them, not everyone has an hour to waste at any given time. legally you could tell them to pound sand and drive off, if they try to detain you then they would be breaking the law themselves for unlawful imprisonment, just try to do it in a respectful way.

in fact no one should be responding to these tests, because if you do they can send you to the referee if you fail. these stations shouldn't even exist, it is a horrible misallocation of taxpayer money and state resources in order to target the .1% of polluting vehicles in the state. initially it was implemented as a test study to see how vehicles tested months to years after they were last smogged, that focus was muddied and turned into them sniping off target cars that were in the high smog failure rate categories. from a test study to a trap, just know your rights when portable smog stations show up in california again.

they've already done their job by getting rid of most of the old junkers, time for them to move on to more important things.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

to be fair a 100% legal LS swap would need to have all the OBDII hardware installed as well, all the evaporative stuff, and the like.

ACR_RX-7

iTrader: (1)

Check out the E-Rod kit. It's an LS3 with all of the trimmings and a OBD2 PCM, but again, not legal here.