Psssh, what do you know about smog, Mark?

*ducks*

It's a very valid point; even a single high-flow cat doesn't help much in terms of emissions, and if you've got a car that runs fat (and safe), you're screwed....
Have you run any tests on Scooby's with aftermarket cats?

 

if they have anything near, what my(lzykid4life) school uses, we are all screwed. I tested (bboypinoys) car and legal limit of the stuff they try to find(nox) is around 500 to 600 somewhere around there, and his car running a turboback, up-pipe, and tune it got up to 1600+, and thats at idle.. just to let you guys know, or kinda know what they will find or see....

 

haha last time i went through a roadside smog checkpoint, I turned off my car and coasted through it

 

Ill shoot some fireballs at em & speed off haha i never knew before but my friend told me i shoot ~2ft fireballs

 

im thinking maybe that will tip u off.. but thats just me

 

Agreed. According to the nose-dyno, my TurboXS cat doesnt do jack. I can smell the fumes all the time. Oh-well, at least it looks better than catless.

And yeah, wagon stealth keeps the pigs away

 

Somebody w/ teh uber l337 lawyer speak should write a letter to teh cali government and post it up so we all can send it to our various governers and lawmakers etc, if we can get every california iclub member here to send in these letters, and post it up to some other forums, we CAN change things! I've been writing to jon t. doolittle for a while and in one letter he said I made a good argument and he'll look further into the issue (global warming), it wasn't one of those canned letters you get whenever you write a politician... w00t!!!

I'd write one, but I usually sound like a moron

here is a list of senators (contact info)>>> http://www.senate.gov/general/contac...nators_cfm.cfm

to get ya'll started

 

Writing a letter is a good start, but it's not going to change anything. Drivers of modified imports have been villified by the media.

The general public's concensus is that we're all a danger to them, their family, children, and goldfish; and that we are all unemployed low-life criminal scum who will rob their homes to buy parts. And because this is the general public concensus, this is also the general public voters' opinion.

The people who the politicians really care about (besides the guy giving them $15,000 and a yacht in exchange for a million dollar government contract) are the ones who vote them into office. I don't know about you guys, but I think it's safe to say that most of the modified import drivers don't vote, or can't vote. There's no way a politician, or any other government employee, is going to put their career in jeopardy by telling the POs to stop harassing drivers who have big wheels and an exhaust. Show me one politician who is willing to stand up for us and I'll show you one who isn't going to be voted back in the next election.

I think if we really want something done, we need to get all the local car enthusiasts together, and show the politicians our voting strengths. For us to be taken seriously, we have to become a voting bloc, and use our money and voting power collectively. This is what SEMA is trying to do, but, in my opinion, they are not effective when it comes down to localized matters. We wouldn't have enough people to change how the State runs things, but I'm sure we could get some breathing room leverage in the Sacramento area.

 

That is the idea of writing letters, you get a whole lot of people writing letters, with hope the lawmaker will see that WE are the people that vote, people who write letters/emails, are the people that vote! IMHO

 

I understand your point. I wasn't trying to knock you. But, truthfully, letter writing, especially for the modern import community the way it is now, is not going to be effective. It won't hurt (maybe), but there's better ways of expending the effort. When was the last time you heard of a successful letter writing campaign from an unorganized unpopular group? What I'm trying to suggest is to do the letter writing campaign AND organize the local car enthusiasts to vote a certain way depending on the politician's actions.

Forming a voting bloc / interest group will be more powerful and persuasive than a bunch of individual cookie-cutter letters (if you can get that many). Organized interest groups are also able to attract more people,direct resources more effectively, and thereby place the most pressure on politicians.

Most letters are written individually, and do not provoke anything within the politician / govt cronie. What's one, a dozen, or even a hundred individual letters going to do in the grand scheme of things? Now, if you couple the cookie-cutter letter campaign with a statement like, "This is one of X,000 identical letters being written to you from each member of an organized group of politically-active voters in your voting district..." then the letter writing campaign has teeth. It shows that there are X,000 confirmed voters that politician can either count on, or be afraid of. And for most state, city, and local politicians, that's a lot to think about.

You can write in your individual or cookie-cutter letter that there are thousands of unhappy driving enthusiasts, but unless you can prove that there are a thousand unhappy driving enthusiasts ready to vote for their rival come next election if you say so, that threat would be baseless.

In any case, I still commend you on actually doing something about it, rather than ***** and complain and sit on on your *** like I'm doing.

 

I know you're not trying to knock me, and I understand letter/email writing is not going to change everything. But it is a great place to start, and a great place to rally the various motorist groups together that understand the greater good of eliminating/minimizing laws such as this (vehicular profiling).

The masses of the enthusiast populous NEED a place to start, from there, anything is possible.

 

So you just implied the general consensus was wrong then reaffirmed them in the same breath?? i dont know about you but i pay taxes same as any fart smelling san fran prius driver & i vote in every election and i bet most of the people in SRIC are no different.... If you were referring to the CRX fart canners you might be right but around here its a different story..

 

SRIC is a very small portion of the modified vehicle 'scene'. We are outnumbered by idiots.

 

Truth. That's what you have to remember. That guy screaming along at 100 swerving in and out of traffic in his Honda, or, these days, in his "new-to-him" bugeye WRX? That's the image that stays in people's mind, and why the whole street racing thing is so vilified. Thery're the same people we make fun of, but, to a non-enthusiast, we look the same. That big loud exhaust, the big wheels, slammed on the ground.......people don't make character distinctions.

How many times have you been driving the speed limit in a neighborhood and someone yelled at you to "SLOW DOWN, THERE ARE KIDS HERE!!!!!!"

That's why it's a losing battle. The 5% that are ****ups ruin it for the 95% of us that aren't. When you see an SUV with someone on the cellphone behind the wheel, do you assume they know what they're doing and will be driving safely and courteously? No. You assume they're a dumbass yapping along not paying the slightest attention to what's going on around them and you should give them a wide berth, and get the hell away, right? Not every one of them is like that, but you had a bad experience that makes you look at them all differently.......

As I've said before, and I'll say it again, the only way to go is stealth. You can get away with a lot more in a low-profile car. People know I tear *** around everywhere, but I bet if you asked 10 people that I passed what my car was or for any distinguishing characteristics, noone would be able to tell you. Maybe my plate. They might think, where is that guy going in such a hurry; but, because it's not a little sedan or coupe, it must not get slotted into that "ricer" profile.

Or something. That's the only way I can explain how I get away with it... (a V1 helps too)

 

True, but the subaru community isnt alone... there are plenty of 350z, supra, rx-7 and other "higher class" import enthusiasts that are getting lumped into the same category with the idiots that think their 94 integra is a 100mph drift car... it just plain sucks. Such is life i guess.