my fault, didnt notice

 

Yea, CA is retarded like that. As long as you meet the emissions requirements by emitting less than X amount of hydrocarbons, etc. who cares what brand of catalytic converter you use? Also, as long as you're emitting LESS than the requisite amount, who cares if you meet that requirement by 1 hydrocarbon or 1 million hydrocarbons - meeting is meeting.
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TSD COMPETITION GRADE PLASTIC AIRSOFT

 

Out of curiosity, how do people with aftermarket exhausts pass the smog test in CA? In the visual inspection, what exactly do they look for?

 

missing cats, anything that looks aftermarket/shiny, cutouts, 02 sensors, etc.

 

So if it's illegal even for hi-flow catted DP.... What's the point? Why not go for maximum power and get a catless DP

 

Because (1) a catless setup stinks, and if a cop smells it and realizes that you're catless, you're screwed, and (2) most Smog places probably wouldn't recognize an aftermarket DP from the OEM one, or may not even care to look for it, so you'll pass the sniffer portion of the smog test fine, and won't have to keep swapping back the OEM downpipe every few years.
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Best Vaporizor

 

Smell I can some what understand. But the HP gains of only having to swap once every couple yrs is well worth it to me lol

 

because most other states don't have a visual inspection. So you can use a high flow cat and pass smog.


To answer your earlier question on "how do people with aftermarket exhausts pass smog" the answer is they just swap the stocker back.

I'm not going to get into the less than legal methods of passing smog and however much they cost, but normal smog checks are like 40 bucks - why not just spend an hour to swap the stock exhaust back in and pay 40 bucks instead of several hundred?

 

Swapping only the TBE portion shouldn't be too bad, but do they check the up-pipe too? It does have a cat for us 02-05 owners. I hear it's kind of a PITA to install.
(Thinking about upgrades )

Sorry OP, don't mean to detract your thread.

 

put the stocker stuff back on then put the aftermarket parts on after passing

exactly..never understood why someone would bother to go hi-flow...I swear to god if they mention they want more power but want to save the enviroment they can EADIA big time.

Not always. I never had an issue with my setup...full TBE, sti uppipe, 0 cats...never got looked at, never got hassled, never stank.

Oh and they would notice if its bright and shiny and doesnt have a huge *** heatshielf around particular areas.

they dont generally check the uppipe...best catless uppipe to get that has 100% oem fitment...friggin STi Uppipe if you're going to do it. Looks stock because uhh it is and the idiot smog tards aren't going to know the difference.

sorry if i sound like a douche...im tired and annoyed from work lol

 

I run a high flow cat as I find myself wanting to try to be environmentally conscious. It's more a matter of preference and cost. Go ahead and judge me, douche waffles. I'll feed you a dick through your *******.

I do believe I came across something somewhere about maintaining a cat to prevent boost creep but I don't know if it's accurate.

 

holy crap if you were any bit enviromentally concious then you wouldn't be altering your car and conform to kalifornia's standards to leave it alone.

cost of noncatted>catted

Oh and I will judge hyprocrites who modify but are "enviromentally concious" because I'm a douch waffle!

 

Up pipe is 10x more of a PITA than the DP. But I swapped my stock one out for an aftermarket cattless one. Put the stock DP and passed smog fine.

 

yep I only did the uppipe cause the motor was out of the car.

 

So who makes a good hi-flow cat?