When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
I just took my 86.5 6.5 to get it's smog certificate renewed. I have read much about CA smog, headers etc.
It was an interesting experience ( we are talking Berkeley where manholes are now called maintenance holes and policemen are called police officers ( new ordinance ). When the tech drove the car onto the rollers he looked at me and said, "this isn't stock is it?"
Behind me in line and running was a 328 Ferrari that was just sold and the new owner was getting ready for a trip up the coast with his young new girlfriend.
My car passed with super results, extremely clean ( thank you GB) the Ferrari did not.
The increased stroke increases the thermal efficiency of the engine. Combine that with fresh seals, cats, and a custom engineered oil control PCV system and you get a very clean running car.
Greg builds very clean engines. No point in building something inefficient when you're trying to make it better than stock.
I wouldn't insult the intelligence of the smog guy, but you don't want to impress him with your cool headers either. I would stick with an answer like, its an old car so its hard to tell what was stock.
One slip with BAR official checking them and they lose their STAR license for 6 months I think on the first offense. When we sold our 99 LIncoln earlier this year it was hard to find a smog check place that would test an older car.
My canned statement for those with "official" questions: "Performance is adequate."
My Cali smog guy was a former 928 owner he said, and a car guy from well into his immigrant past. After the first visit, his standard question was whether anything had been changed since the last visit. With the GB packages, having an engine bay that looks like it came that way from the factory is a huge blessing. While blingy add-ons might make you feel better at the parking-lot show-off gatherings, they are a curse at smog time in California. Well engineered and fitted pieces are key, in colors and finishes that could have come in the car when it was delivered.
I'm pretty sure I could sell tube headers if they were black and had the correct connections and fittings. The factory exhaust is a stainless tube manifold with expansion joints, plus gas sample tubes with light blue caps at the corners by the air cleaner box. The lower stuff is tastefully protected from prying eyes by the belly trays, with only the rear of the cats visible.
Van's car also has the luxury of having been inspected in Cali prior to receiving the GB engine upgrade. Mine received a more careful DMV visual inspection when it came back into the state twenty-odd years ago, but after that it was pretty plain vanilla. It helps to have an inspector old enough to know that there's no OBD test port to plug into, and that there's no "check engine" function even though there's a space for one in the cluster.
All I said at first was "you talking to me?" After I passed I told him that it was a 6.5 and he said that it felt like it. Also I asked him about headers and he said as long as they are not obvious which on my car you would have to remove to the intake tubes and look really close and know what you are looking at to notice that maybe it wasn't stock. They are not required to look under cars and they don't have a lift. Greg does build motors without bling and all the powder coating is a original looking as possible.
All of my strokers end up with far less emissions than any of the stock engines. Most all of my engines would pass California smog "number" inspections (even the out of state cars)......without cats.
There was no trickery, no adjusting, no "find a special guy" for testing Van's car....he randomly drove it in for a routine smog inspection, without even lifting the hood!
You people that want to bitch about the technical difference between my headers and stock manifolds need to find something else to rag about, other than my extensively designed and developed pieces.....like any one of those supercharged/turbocharged cars venting crankcase air directly to the atmosphere.....which was made illegal FEDERALLY in 1958! Made illegal, over 60 years ago! Or how about all you people, out there, running "Y" pipes without cats? Or those running no air pump? Both huge federal crimes!
And I'm the "bad" guy building cars that are far, far cleaner than when they were made originally?
My dad taught me, when I was young, that it's really tough to be at the very top of the "game", that people will take "pot shots" at you every chance they get, just to make themselves feel better.
I think this thread is more of a commentary about CA than CARS... ;-)
Both my wife and I grew up in the early 50's in Orange County, California. We both remember summer days, as kids, when it literally hurt to breathe, where a very deep breath resulted in coughing or choking.
If you've even seen the movie "Soylent Green", the smog they show in that movie was amazingly close to the smog in the late 50's and 60's in California.
I'm happy there are California Smog Regulations. Yes, some of the regulations are not well thought through, but that's just normal politics. One of the more recent "disasters" was a rule that new cars did not have to be inspected for 5 years. Needless to say, there's a bunch of late model cars that don"t have cats....people think that cats need to be removed for cars to perform properly.
The only good thing? If the CHP (or any local agency) catches one of these, they confiscate it and crush it...and the insurance company won't pay for it!
The
Theon Goes Full Carbon Fiber With Stunning New Build
Slideshow: Built around a carbon-bodied 964 and a naturally aspirated 4.0-liter flat-six, this bespoke commission highlights how far the restomod formula has evolved.
Tuner Is Converting Porsche 911s Into Shooting Brakes
Slideshow: A Polish Porsche specialist is moving ahead with one of the most unusual 911 conversions in recent memory: a shooting brake version of the 991-generation sports car.
This Coachbuilt Creation Is A Modern Take on the Legendary Porsche 917
Slideshow: A Porsche Carrera GT has been transformed into a one-off coachbuilt machine that blends analog supercar engineering with styling inspired by the legendary 917 race cars.
Is This Convertible Cayenne A Steal, Or A Returnless Investment?
Slideshow: A heavily modified Porsche Cayenne convertible with faux wood trim and a long list of flaws recently sold at auction for surprisingly little money.
Porsche's Top 5 Most Questionable Naming Decisions
Slideshow: For a company obsessed with engineering precision, Porsche has occasionally named its cars in ways that left even loyal enthusiasts scratching their heads.
Pogea Racing's 964 Porsche 911 Reimagination Stands Out in a Crowded Field
Slideshow: Pogea Racing's latest Porsche 964 project blends carbon-fiber construction, modern chassis upgrades, and up to 500 horsepower while keeping the air-cooled 911 experience firmly analog.
Getting a 6.5 thru smog in California
