Know what pisses me off the most about all this smog stuff? With the way the test is done now on the rollers and under load. What does it matter what you have done to the motor, as long as the tail pipe emissions are within the specs. After all it is suppose to be all about the clean air. It makes me so mad that it is all about the money and not the clean air.
I think they have visual inspection etc to avoid having people use temporary measures to get around the emissions. i.e. Jerry rigging up a BBQ propane bottle and feeding that into the air cleaner etc. Over on the thesamba.com, when I was a VW Beetle guy, I remember them talking about having two engines....One for smog and one for all other days.. If you are good, it only takes an hour to change the engine in an old VW beetle though.
I agree with the "well... it passes.." but People would be doing things to make it temporarily pass. I just wish that since it's all about money... we could have the option to pay a certain amount every year every other year etc, or have it smogged. pay like I don't know 400 bucks for two years. On another note: Anyone know if the doug thorely heat riser or any other heat riser that has a ball socket kind of thing? That the hedman's will bolt up to? Also, I found a part hedman 21150 but it's so cheap and there's no picture so I am not sure if its an actual heat riser or something else.
I found these listings. It looks to me, that the headman part is just a adapter to hook a stock heat riser to the header. Not the riser itself. diagram here http://goodies-speedshop.com/i-1464974-hedman-hedders-21150-heat-riser-valve.html picture in package here http://www.summitracing.com/parts/HED-21150
That's odd on the hedman site it said 21120 was the adapter. Oh well. Do you know if the doug thorley one fits ball and socket flange?
In theory I agree with the maxim that if it is clean at the tailpipe then it should pass regardless of what's under the hood but I think li0nhart123 and David_56 have nailed it on the head so a visual to ensure that exhaust pipes are connected all the way back, no temporary injection systems installed, etc, etc would be appropriate. What I'd really like to see is some sort of special/seasonal/limited use permitting for older cars. Reality is most of these cars don't see daily driver usage so a special registration to reflect that would make sense. It would exempt the cars for emissions testing in perpetuity and carry stiff fines for violations (over so many miles per year - sort of like insurance companies do) and a reversion to normal registration. I don't know what a good annual mileage would be (somewhere significantly south of 5K I should think) but it could be reported at time of annual registration (like the Auto Club does) and if found to be falsely reported again with the fines and ejection from the program. Alaska has a program like this called seasonal registration (in recognition that some cars are put away for the winter) no emissions testing, reduced cost and good for something like 4-6 months during the spring/summer/fall.
The only thing is, I think people might start to spin back the odometers... The world is a f%#@ed up place
David, have you ever tried to spin back an odometer? Joe, in Arizona if you carry Classic insurance your car is exempt from testing Works pretty well for me.