i literally just got my evo after like 2 years of searching, just to a headache. i hate california so much, no one even wants to try smogging my car, they say they have a rating that goes down when they have to fail a car. i switched back to completely stock rom today and was turned away from a smog place just because they said mitsubishis have a 9/10 fail rate. i doubt that but i really do hate carb

I got smogged in Cali a few months ago. They are not doing checksum or Rom ID lookups at the STAR smog test places. If you get flagged it's cause ya done ****ed up the patch.

did you use the force monitor patch ?

That's a pretty pointed question, you wouldn't happen to be affiliated with any law enforcement or investigatory bodies would you?

depends on what you got under the hood ;)
I honestly am still looking to smog my car, and my monitors will set, but will get some bs code up right before. have got 3 different codes so far that are pretty general. I have since flashed stock rom, slapped a cat on and my o2 sensors arent readying up still. funny thing is my cat and o2 sensors would ready when it didn't have a cat, now that its on, it wont ready
EDIT: see you're a bay boy too :cool:

If you post the codes I will happily post the relevant information and diagnostics procedures from the OEM service manual. That should help you figure out whats going on. You might want to inspect the ecu harness and check on the connections for the oxygen sensors. These are often modified to allow wiring in aftermarket electronics.

P.S. You gotta keep your game pretty tight in Cali, anything that wont pass a visual is a liability. So much as a samco logo on your OEM UICP couplers will get you burned.

i haven't got any codes so far, I've just changed my rear o2, so i'll drive it around and see if anything comes up. the tune also might have been making some codes pop up, I don't know who tuned it or with what, but yeah as I said I put it back to stock rom and changed out a lot of the parts. I got the car from out of state so they didn't have to worry about any bs inspections like we do. I was just wondering pretty much if i can throw the patch on and call it a day, I've been going crazy trying to get this thing cali legal.

Well like I said, if you get flagged its because you did something wrong.

I've recently been told by an acquaintance that if you get a ref ticket in CA that you actually can just pay a fine and not have to go back to stock. I think he's full of sh!t because that's not the experience that I had. Can anyone confirm this with today's laws?

that's just for an exhaust ticket, and now it's not that you don't HAVE to go to get the state ref to sign off that you changed your exhaust, it's a non-correctable, meaning that you can't get it signed off. My buddy just got that ticket, $800 for modified exhaust. before you would get pulled over for a loud exhaust, get a fix it ticket and go to a ref and they sign it off. you walk away paying around $25, now you get pulled over, get the ticket, cop walks away laughing knowing he made a college kid pay almost a grand for doing something that isn't hurting anyone.

I've heard this too..

Usually from the guys with big turbos who don't want to go through the hassle of switching back to stock.

Probably how some of these IGfamous kids do it..

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From what I heard, you either pay the ridiculous fee and carry on with your day or you take your car in to CHP, they do their thing and your ticket gets cut down to about $100. If you get pulled over again for the same thing, your $100 ticket just turned into a $250 ticket. Its like each time you get a ticket for the same thing, your fine ends up doubling until you peak out at something like $1200.

You either have noise ordinances or every ass hole out there is going to drive around with no muffler at all and make everyone crazy. This topic has been argued in other places already, but we can do it again. Obviously its become enough of a problem that the state has stepped up enforcement. You can blame said ass holes for that.

True, this has been an issue for a while now. When I received a very in-concise "Referee Required Modified Exhaust" ticket through a check point back in 2009, I went to court to fight it since it was going to be a $500.00 fine and the cop did not show up. I pleaded not guilty so that judge scheduled a traffic court session with me and the officer.

The fine was dismissed because he did not show, but I was told that the car would still need to visit a state referee. At the time I only had a quiet cat back exhaust, an o2 housing, oem cat, and a synpase valve. It was such an over issued ticket, that when I talk to my sheriff friends today, they told me that they would have punched that cop in the face for that kind of BS. It was a damn DUI check point and they were issuing traffic tickets. The Nazi -Cali law says that any mods done before the cat are illegal period, because screw logic. You should see how many stock smokers are allowed to rome around the streets burning coolant and oil all day.

Regardless, I setup a state referee appointment which was at Southwestern College in Chula Vista. The referee was pretty jaded. There was a 300zx on the smog roller dyno before I showed up and it had lots of shiny bits under the hood. Not sure what he was doing or why he was there. When it came my turn, the referee took out a stick mirror and started looking around for shiny parts. He found my o2 housing and synapse valve. I had to source oem parts, throw them on, and go back to him. Mind you this process took 4 months because it took a WHILE to get an appointment due to the volume of ref tickets given. He would not let me pass unless every last oem part was on the car. Since then I have kept spares of every stock part in the front half of the car. They are complete mad men for doing this to people.

Yup that's what ended up happening to OP also bc of the smog check messing up, which could not have even been bc of the tune. its all a cash grab. they even know people are just going to throw parts back on, they let us in case they get bored and want to feel in charge, they'll pull us over bc of tints or exhaust. i don't street race i just like having my car unique and to my tastes. now that i think of it every person i know with a modified car doesn't street race or participate in sideshow activity, but bc of my location we probably get bunched in with those folk.