I want a catted downpipe. Wonder if anybody has seen in person the Cobb downpipe with cat. From the pictures the cat seems to be where the stock third cat is. Would this pass the visual portion of CA smog check?

TIA!
Anthony

 

It depends COMPLETELY on the individual doing the inspection. If he knows what a stock WRX looks like, and he does his job by the book, no. In reality, I think most of them just look for a cat somewhere in the system.

 

unless he's a subaru expert, he wont know the diff.

 

What? I never heard of this before.

 

yeah, never heard that before...

and I agree it totally depend on the guy checking. when i got my smog done, they barely looked under the car, let alone tried to identify the DP.

keep in mind that the Cobb piece is not going to be CARB certified, so just by that, it's probably illegal in cali.

Really, it doesn't matter so much what you have done, just where you go, since it's all most likely illegal in cali anyway.

dan.

 

The law is very specific on this:
If the part does not have a CARB number than it is illegal - peroid.

You aftermarket downpipe could make the car shoot perfume out the tailpipe and it would still be illegal without a CARB number.

Now weather or not the smog tech spots it is another thing entirely

 

i've heard the 50,000 mile thing before as well, but have yet to find any hard proof of it. i'm at 43k and will easily hit 50k before I have to smog it.

 

Man, if my car shot out perfume, I'd be the coolest guy on the block.

 

Thanks for some useful replies. Remember I didn't ask for legality, if that's what I was really concerned with I would not have asked. I ask because on my Volvo wagon the smog tech balked at my CAI but not a peep about the high flow race cat in the stock location. So I guess when smog check comes around I'll just find a busy place to test at.

Anthony

 

this is absolutley true, I was about to type this as well, but to be a bit more specific, it is not legal to replace a catalytic converter until it has reached 5 years or 50,000 miles, or if it has failed.

Im always surprised how many people around here dont know this but I suppose its because many WRXs are not over 50K yet.

 

Just rolled 60,000.

Thanks for the tip.

M

 

wrong again. you can only replace the cat if it is missing when you bought the car used or it has failed and you have 5 years or 50,000 miles. Otherwise you need to replace it with a stock OEM cat.

Even at 50,000 miles, the cats are still under warrenty so the law requires that the cats be replaced by the dealers under warrenty repair.

 

so, i have a 2003 wrx that's at 44,000 miles. if i read you guys correctly, when i hit 50,000 miles in about 6 months, and my cats fail, I can replace them with aftermarket replacements? are there any links to information on this? preferably ending in a .ca.gov

 

how exactly is this different than what I said? If its less than 5 years or 50K it cannot be replaced with an aftermarket cat, think we're both saying the same thing.