I am considering a 2003 w/ mods. However, I have serious reservations after owning a few heavly modded cars in the past and dealing with CA smog. (It's a pain in the ****) Plus, I'm not overly excited to fill up with 100 octane all the time either. So, my question is: What mods can I get away with to pass CA Smog and run 91 pump most of the time?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

Some mild computer flashing designed for 91 octane gas and high flow cats/exhaust should let you get past Calif Smog. GIAC also makes a flash loader you can change the programming yourself to switch between 91 to 100 octaine gas. When it's time for the smog check, just flash it back to the stock program and no one is the wiser. There is a debate if 100 cell cats will pass smog as they wear out with higher milage. If you want to play it safe go with 200 or 300 cell cats. If the car is already modded it will have to pass smog before you register it. Have the seller provide the smog certificate as a condition of sale.

 

Yup stay with 200 cell or above cats and go with a form of programming that gives you choices and you should be just fine.

 

CA smog is easy on this car because they don't put AWD cars on the rollers.

Just make sure the place you go passes your "visual". Otherwise you'll be fine. My stage 4 passed no problem. I recommend taking it to your tuner and have them smog at a place they "know"

 

Big Thanks Guys! Very helpful.

 

In CA, it is the responsibility of the seller to have a current smog as a condition of the sell. Just went through this recently...
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/smogfaq.htm#BM2537

 

no rollers, 100 cats will pass fine, and unless you have airbox, no one knows what they're looking at. it's nowhere near the pain it is w/ a japanese import (the main reason i sold my Supra.)

yes, cop could pull you over at any time and refer you to the state ref; but, despite my very aggressive look & loud sound, no CHP has ever asked to check under the hood.

- chuck

 

I just did my lightly modded 996tt and passed with no drama.
Upsolute, Europipe II, S-Car-Go CF intake, gravelly-sounding idle
because of a light-weight flywheel. Just finished smogging it at
the nearest gas station. They have a smog dyno and I had to
reiterate that my car was AWD. The guy spent more time whining
about how much he'd had to spend for the new smog test machine.
They idle it with the sniffer in for 30 secs at 2500rpm, and check
the OBDII data. I passed fine. One safe thing to get might be one of
those code-reader/clearers because apparently a car with any check-
engine light on is an immediate fail. I'd had one a month ago, about
multiple random misfires, which I cleared and never came back.
The machine reports directly to the DMV *before even indicating
pass or fail*. Nowadays you can pay your fees online with no extra
cost. I did, and will get the tags within 5 working days.
Joe

 

They are doing dyno/roller smog tests now? I had to do those in CO, but I've never seen one in CA. I've always got SMOG done at a local gas station.

As already stated, just make sure it "looks" factory. Some random tech won't know the difference on a 996tt. Also, if you flog the car a bit before the test, the cats will get hotter and will work more efficiently.

 

my car passed with flying colors and that was with fouled spark plugs

 

If I lived in Cali I'd be waiting for the day for the cop to ask to pop the hood and walk up front

 

Yeah, it's pretty much a non issue.....unless you get into cams and such.......

Chris

 

I haven't been to the smog station with my GT2 yet, but my 993TT always passed with no issues... k24's, cat bypass pipes, GIAC, 5bar FPR, K&N, HUGE FVD Intercooler, etc. Never had a single problem.

 

there's also another alternative - there *are* counties where smog is not required (Sonoma & Napa come to mind, as well as one zip code in Santa Clara - weird.) i don't really know the rationale behind this (even if they are cleaner counties/zips, wouldn't you want to preserve it?) but that's also an option.

of course, they could start testing any year.

- chuck

 

Joe Weinstein: I saw your comment about multiple random misfires...and I just went through that same thing very recently. Coincidentally, it threw CELs for multiple random misfires and cylinder misfires for #2 and #5. This condition also cleared after a day or two....but the interesting part was it occurred RIGHT AFTER I had the car smogged....it's a California smog check.

Did your misfires occur after your smog check? I think the code was P300 and P302. I used the reader they loan out at AutoZone. The car sounded really bad when it misfired....like it was running on four cylinders. I called Porsche and naturally they said "bring it in"....I was actually on the way to their service department....which is 40 miles away, when the CEL cleared....and it hasn't come back....so I turned around and went home. No recurrence since then. I had Loren (RennTech) run it on his new PIWIS, and it showed misfires on #2 and #5....I'm not a big believer in coincidence....so I was focused in on the smog station...even thought their program is a read-only.

Have you had any further incidents?

Chuck