I live in Virginia. I am thinking about doing some increasingly crazy things to my car. I know that it is generally illegal to take cats off your car. I'm considering doing it anyway. Anybody know just what you can get away with-- Virginia preferably, but anywhere just for yuks and giggles?

To what extent to ECUs and chips and flashing the OEM ECU affect emissions? Can you program them to fix the exhaust to pass emissions and then put them back for performance (I know the basics, but I'm literally trying to plan around getting ticketed 4 times a week).

What do people do about passing emissions if they play crazy games with their cars?