kaj

iTrader: (60)

You have a ton of stuff that won't pass. But I don't believe you are allowed to pass with a CEL

fireroasted

iTrader: (3)

If you have a stock cat, and the engine bay is not blinged out you will likely pass visual. The airbox box is a big one. Don't have a giant cone filter, that never works. The CEL is for sure your biggest issue, and second is the place where you get it smogged. Try to find a place that is at least knowledgable, maybe with help from the forums, though you may need PMs to get an answer from folks in your area. Nobody will want to comment on the open forum about smog shops as the regs on them are crazy tight, and they police and fine them as a policy. Good ones do exist though. I put stock cat on, and have a stock engine bay, and I passed.

All of the smog stuff is nonsense anymore. Our cars are dinosaurs, and smogging them has no positive impact anymore. I am an environment champion for sure, and getting older and milder on stuff, but electric and alternate stuff is taking over. These regulations are a waste of money and effort. They will do little to benefit the environment anymore. They were appropriate at one time, but some regs for manufacturers for new cars is effective, but after that our problem is the production of the materials used for new tech cars, batteries and stuff like that.

The numbers of EVO, subies, or old pickup trucks are dwindling and their impact is negligible. At least any impact that a smog test would ensure to prevent. none.

If you do some ECU cleaning make sure you have enough miles on it, or a good tuner so all the readiness is set appropriate for clearing your AYC cel.

Pal215

iTrader: (12)

^ Yup. Ever since CA smog became more about the visual and checking your electronics (mostly the o2 sensors) than sniffing your exhaust gases, it lost all rational gains for the environment. I'm glad they stopped doing sniffer, but I took my daily driver (09 corolla) to a typical smog shop the other day and all they did was let it idle, scan the vin, and maybe plug something into the OBDII port and they passed it. That's not enough information to tell if your engine is burning something it shouldn't.

Of course, they would have handled it differently if I brought the Evo in and had a field day with it.

Matz

iTrader: (3)

Having gone through my fair share of smogs and failures, I think your biggest hurdle is going to be the intake and UICP. But it depends on the shop that you go to. Once the guy saw my UICP, then he looked around more. He saw the plate that replaces the cross bars and realized my DP was also not stock. Immediate failure. But once I swapped out all of the parts and went back, he plugged his scanner into the OBDII port, idled the car for 10 minutes or so, and I passed.

wtftuck

I've been trying to find a heat shield to put back on my CAT but no luck and now Mitsubishi discontinued it entirely.

Matz

iTrader: (3)

Having gone through this fairly recently, it could be that YMMV on the shop you go to. The shop I went to failed me on the visual almost immediately. UICP and my coated DP were cited as reasons for this. Catback exhaust won't be a problem. I don't think the tune will be one, either, but I honestly don't know what they're scanning for these days when they hook up OBD to do the smog check. Incidentally, I bought a brand new cat ($669, ouch) because it had been so long since I smogged and I didn't even know sniffers aren't in use anymore. So you might get lucky doing the Tephra mod to clear the CEL and do other trickery to bypass the smog check. I've heard this exists, but I don't have details.

Thanks for the reminder, I need to post up in the For Sale forum to sell the cat, which only has 200 miles at most on it right now.

Hopefully, someone that lives around SF can recommend you a shop that isn't so strict about the visual inspection, but be prepared to hear that they are all like this in CA now... Good luck!

kaj

iTrader: (60)

Legally, the heat shield isn't required. My last smog had the tech asking me about it. I told him I had to remove it because the spot welds broke and the noise was driving me nuts. The serial number/whatever was still on the cat, so he passed the car. Again, the heat shield is NOT required. If you have a tech that is so scared, he's willing to fail you for it, go to another smog shop. That's my advise, anyway. I do recognize the fact that C.A.R.B. has smog shops paranoid of fines and losing their licenses. It's ****ing nuts.

So far, it seems the ECU scans are random and nobody knows they are caught until they get a notice in the mail. You may want to be careful when advising people they can pass with a tune, as that is becoming less and less common. California is obviously catching onto modded ECUs and I see their crackdown becoming the norm for all smog inspections. Yay California. I'd advise you keep your cat. converter if you plan to keep your Evo in CA. I can promise you will need it again.

Matz

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for that information! And I apologize if it sounded like I was giving advice. It was really meant to be more like a, "I heard this works and maybe you'll get lucky" statement. My Evo doesn't have any Tephra hacks and passed, even though I had failed smog previously. I changed the cat and spark plugs, only to find that when I eventually passed and got my Evo re-registered, they didn't even bother to sniff it.

Well, I'm glad that I'm selling the Evo soon and will no longer be modding any future vehicles. Too much of a pain in the ***, and I'm too old for this as well.

kaj

iTrader: (60)

Yeah, no cat needed for the sniffer, just visual and to keep the rear O2 from registering a fault.
I'm with you on the PITA thing. I sold my Evo to a company out of state. Occasionally, I still get to drive it. It became not worth it for me to maintain and smog the car in CA any more. The state made it impossible for me to keep the car on the road..which is really annoying considering I was putting only about 1000 miles per year on it. So **** them.
My other "fun" car is 100% stock and will stay that way. Commiefornia wins. They have officially sucked the car culture out of Commiefornia. It used to be so fun.

RazorLab

iTrader: (8)

Wait wait wait. You literally stated you would never sell your car multiple times on this forum.

Fresno is that good that staying there made you sell the Evo?

*That question is rhetorical. I've lived in Fresno. It sucks. It's probably #95 out of the 100 of places I would live in California. However, I moved to NJ from California so what the hell do I know! :P

kaj

iTrader: (60)

I own the company and bring the car back any time I wanna use it. 😁 It's a company car, so I no longer own it.

I can't leave CA. I make more money here than any other state and I take advantage of everything the state has to offer. I pay for it, of course, but worth it. Living somewhere with a cheaper cost of living, but with less things to enjoy, is not a trade up for me.

Once I retire, so I then make the same amount of $$$ no matter where I live, THEN I might...might consider moving. But I'll probably still be enjoying CA so nah

DeeezNuuuts83

And incidents like these are why I'm glad I kept my car bone stock.

megatron

iTrader: (6)

May I ask where you were able to buy a new cat? I need to smog my 2003 Evo and can't for the life of me find one anywhere for sale, not even used.

Also, I'm currently running a test pipe fitted with a heat shield, so visually it looks stock. No bling under the hood either, stock airbox etc. Would it be crazy to try and smog as-is, given no more sniffers at the smog stations? No CEL, but the gas smelling exhaust fumes are definitely present.

Matz

iTrader: (3)

Here's a link to the place where I ordered it from. It's not cheap.

https://www.mitsubishiautopartsdirec...erter-mn135566

I'm not totally sure, but if you're running a test pipe, don't you need to have your ECU modded so that it reports altered data over OBD2 to the smog device that they plug in?

megatron

iTrader: (6)

Thanks! I'll try to give them a call for availability. Other vendors all say the OEM cat is now unavailable and obsolete. Then I got quoted $1400 from a local muffler shop to install a universal cat.

You're probably right about the ECU. It's tuned for the current setup but don't know what it would show on the OBDII scanner when smogged. I'll continue to search from an OEM cat and hopefully one will popup in the classifieds.