Whats up guys. This might be a shot in the dark but Ive finally saved enough to buy an fd and wanted to see if any other owners in california actually went through the process of getting the car completely cali legal through G&K and if so how was the process.

 

I haven't gone through the process myself but from what I was told when inquiring about importing and making things cali legal always added another $10k minimum. That was a few years ago when I was looking on getting an Eunos Cosmo 20B in. Every owner I know who owns a imported FD has had it registered out of state between Oregon and Montana.

 

From what I have read, I agree with @Mazdaspeed RX8 ver2 way more cost effective to register in another state and skip the California hassle.

 

Thanks for the reply. Yea its around that price range to get it all set up in cali. I looked into the LLC option as well but thats not an option for me unfortunately.

 

CA will not accept the EPA 21-year exemption (not sure if they accept the NHTSA 25-year exemption), so to get a license plate the car at minimum will need to be modified to conform to the emissions standards in effect for the model year. That means exhaust and evaporative emissions testing in a certified test lab. The test itself is probably $3-4K, each time. Fail once, and you have to redo it again. If you wanted to look into it seriously, G&K in Santa Ana is probably the only choice.

 

every other state is so much easier, i'm not sure why you would even try in CA.

if you have a 92-95 JDM car, making the emissions system the same as a US spec car would be really easy.
you need the pre-cat, ECU (or maybe just swap the lid). the hard one would be EGR if its not a 1995, you'd need to swap lower intakes and add the solenoid

all of the evap stuff is the same, so you'd just need to make sure its there and working.

 

My main reason was I see a lot of higher mileage FD's for sale for around the same price as importing one and getting it certified. I talked to top rank and they said the process to get it CARB certified is the same as the older gens. They still won't tell me exactly what needs to be done but from what I gathered from the GTR guys it seems like G&K just makes sure the car is stock and in good operating order and slaps a bunch of cats on the car.