nm

Like I asked earlier, wouldn't it be easier to just get a UPS box in Jackson? Amador County doesn't do smog checks.

 

Yes. Not legal either, but would be harder to enforce and I'm not sure anyone actually cares.

 

Note that if you park in an urban area, it will likely prevent your ability to get a local parking permit. Sacramento requires the vehicle be registered to an address in the area of the parking restriction.

nm+

I appreciate your observation. However, if your car needs to be smogged and it will cost $5000 to get it back to stock condition in order to pass, chances are your going to look for alternative solutions that are perfectly legal. If you can produce the case law that states I cannot register my vehicle in Nevada and then drive it in California, when I have according to the Nevada's DMV a legal address and insurance in Nevada. I know there is the ten (10) day, or thirty (30) day time frame that the DMV gives to people who live in California that are from out of state to re-register. However, technically I live in both Nevada and California and presented that to the officer that gave me the ticket. He had no problem with the fact that I have an address in Nevada. One other thing, I own four cars and this particular car only gets driven about an hour ever week, which was a consideration when I decided to register the vehicle in Nevada. Are you an attorney? You state that my actions are essentially tax evasion. Do you have the case law to support that statement? The funny part to this story is my car runs on E85 and could pass any sniff test with no problem!

Where do you work?

Where do you vote?

Where do you pay income tax?

Do you have a CA license?

See Cal. Veh. section 516

 

How often is your car operated in CA?

cal. Veh 4004.4

If the vehicle is operated more in CA than any other state, EVEN if you are a Nevada resident, you must register in CA.

 

More to the point, in your post, you advocated getting a P.O. Box, not a residency, which is easily seen through. That is a criminal violation of Vehicle Code section 8804, a misdemeanor for evading fees and taxes, punishable by up to 6 months in the county jail.

 

And, yes. California cares about this a lot. So much that they have created a snitch website. https://www.chp.ca.gov/Notify-CHP/Cheaters-Out-of-State-(Out-of-State-Registration-Violators)

Piss off your neighbors? They may just report that out of state plate they see pull up to your CA house every night.

 

Some of this changes if you're in the military.

This stuff may be somewhat difficult to prove (though not that hard if you admit or a neighbor snitches you out), but it will require hiring a criminal defense attorney and having a misdemeanor hanging over you.

 

This isn't to sya that registering at a non-SMOG address isn't illegal. It is. But no one will really care and your neighbor won't know he can snitch you out.

 

 

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I'd also note that passing a SMOG sniffer on an AWD car is easy. A warmed up catless car might squeak by on a good day. It doesn't actually mean your exhaust is clean.

Chris:

You get the PO Box by going to the UPS Store and better yet, you can state the address as though its an apartment. You know, unit 54, or something like that. Then you take that info to Nevada DMV and register your car. Better yet, when I go to Reno for a weekend of Debauchery and Gambling I can walk in to the Nev DMV and use the kiosk to get my new tags. no waiting for an appt. or in lines. Any mail from the DMV during the year is forwarded to me by the UPS store people.

 

Registering out of state is much more likely to get you into trouble as it is essentially tax evasion. The police and the DMV actually cares about this.

I have this too. Someone else try oven cleaner and report back.

I wonder what a new dash cover costs. . . .

Update: I just did my smog test and passed under the new system!!

 

My car is pretty typical stage 2.....catted aftermarket downpipe, exhaust and upgraded intercooler and tune of course. I have gone to this shop in the past and have built up a pretty good relationship with them. In the past I always put back on my stock exhaust (but left everything else on) and passed with flying colors on the sniffer test. This time I did NOT take off my exhaust and just decided to try it out. I am super happy.

 

You left the tune on, I assume? Cobb AP?

NM+ are you running R tires or street tires? My guess is that the R rated vs street tires has a lot more to do with bearing stress than the weight of the wheel, but I'm certainly no suspension fatigue engineer.

 

IMHO: R rated tires + Competition Camber Settings + No Brake Ducts all combine to cook wheel bearings at a rapid rate.

Streets, so that is possible.

I'm curious about your wheel bearings. Boxkita seems to cook them whenever he gets on the track.

 

I imagine the front are fine because of your ducting, but what about the rears?

Apparently wheel bearing wise, I am very lucky. I've done a bunch of track days and 138k mi and the only rear wheel bearing I've replaced was because of an ABS sensor ring. Meanwhile, my fronts last ~2 years or something stupid (and my engines seem to last about as long). Maybe using small light wheels helps?

Yeah, the pain in the ass part is readiness codes.

Alright, we need a sacrificial lamb. My SMOG isn't due for a year, so not it

^^That's what I did. I just installed my stock cat back (left my tune alone) and drive nice and easy (keeping it under 3000 RPM's) over to the smog shop and passed with flying colors.

 

Did you do this with the sniffer or the rollers?

The problem for anyone who is stage 2 is there is still a visual inspection. That means you will need to remove the downpipe at a minimum and flash a compatible map. At that point for me it makes sense to go back stock even for the new test.

 

You can drive a few miles on a stock cat on a tune. Means you avoid the whole readiness code thing.

Has anyone done the OBDII scan with a tune still installed?

When your car is on the rack, stick around for the whole thing. Then you can annoy the heck out of them and learn the magic behind the process.

 

I recommend sitting in the car for the whole thing.

I will say if you can't find someone local who really knows what they are doing and fancy a roadtrip, this guy is amazing

http://www.thealignmentguy.com/

When I lived in Minneapolis, all the quick cars went there.

If you get -1.5 degrees out of the front, don't bring your rear beyond -0.5 unless you like understeer. I'd keep about 1 degree of difference until you get to 0 in the rear. This is what I have and it is fairly neutral, but I have a front LSD, which increases understeer a bit.

Honestly, the real value in having an adjustable rear camber kit is being able to equalize the camber in a corner balanced car.

I have an oil temp gauge and alarm, and a sender. The sender is not plugged into the block, where do folks normally screw in the oil temp sender?

 

Mine is just at the oil filter. It gets scary hot sometimes on the track. It is one of the biggest concerns of LGTs on the track as far as I'm concerned. Oil temps seem to be more of an issue with turbo motors.

^^^^

You are legally allowed to pass roadside dynos. And I would, even with a completely stock car, waste of my time. Though the goal of those is less to catch polluting vehicles than catch ineffective or corrupt smog tests.

If it was really about emission, what comes out of the tailpipe should be the determining factor. It shouldn't matter what you do between the intake and the exhaust as long as what comes out is below a certain level.

 

This would require a test that would take hours, a skilled operator, and, in our case, a 4 wheel dyno. This is the testing that is done to get an aftermarket part BARed and it costs thousands of dollars.

 

The test, especially on our cars, really just does what our sensors are supposed to do. CalEPA knows a certain range of acceptable emissions thats that will come out of the tailpipe of car X with properly functioning OEM equipment at certain RPMs either with or without load. It is even more of a joke with our cars because our cars are never subjected to load. This is why you hear about AWD cars just sneaking under the limit with test pipes, not just high flows.

The current test, without load, tells nothing. Sure, under no load, your after market turbo isn't producing any boost. It can and probably does increase you emissions (assuming same emissions equipment) at WOT under load, but at 3000k rpm with no load, or idle? Probably not.

I get it dude. I live out here too. My issues with smog testing are pretty simple. It's no longer going to be an emissions test. It's more so going to be an inspection to ensure the factory emissions BS is intact and the ECU is not seeing faults ensuring and working according to spec.

This is all it has ever been. The dyno system is a relic from the pre-OBDII era.

They're not really trying to catch sophisticated cheaters, but people who have failing emissions systems.

Of course... All subjective to the man deciding who gets screwed... Since we live in the valley or "dustbowl" of California the air quality is always going to suck according to da man.

 

No, it is actually based on the amount of pollution. The valley gets a huge amount of airborne stuff from farm equipment, ag chemicals and lots of transportation. All combine with being in valley to trap pollutants.

 

If you live in the Sacramento Valley, you also get all the bay's funk blowing in.

 

 

That said, no matter how strict, no one has to do a 4 wheel dyno. It would cost too much.

FYI, with the weird drum brake setup we have, you're fine setting the e-brake. Way better off than holding the pads to the rotor. That is exactly the problem with most ebrakes these days is that they put the main rear pad on the rotor.

Anyone have suggestions on a new upgraded rear diff for road racing? I think it has (had) a Cusco in it now.

 

Clutch type is still probably the way to go for outright performance. It has sacrifices for the street (noise, maintenance), but for the track, it is the best wheel the wheels get light (or lift) and can be adjustable to some degree (will require dropping the diff).

Also, if that thing doesn't have a front LSD, do it too. If you think it has grip now. . . . That's a place where clutch v. helical gets interesting. I think it is where the clutch-type has the most advantage (front wheels can get very light under power), but with the 5-speed a rebuild requires cracking the transmission case, so yeah.

 

Who made those camber plates? They are the first ones I've seen for this car that don't look like utter cheap shit.

 

Also, what are you doing for oil cooling? My oil gets stupid hot on the track in the summer.

yeah, but who wants to live there

 

The Sonoma County coast is pretty nice.

People have passed the sniffer with a catted DP without issue.

Passing the visual is down to how hard they look.

 

I swap my stock on, but don't reflash (no need if you're only driving a couple of miles, and no need to deal with readiness codes) to avoid the potential drama.

What I read there was a bunch of disclaimers and open verbage to be intrurpreted based on perspective...

Did you receive an off road only warning with your product? Most will say yes.

If the part is not CARB approved it's going to get the Off Road Only classification.

 

That some are passing with after maket IC??? All depends on the tech how he inturpreted the "rules". I say good for you. But others YMMV.

You don't get that with any IC.

Also, there is no rules interpretation. Intercoolers on gasoline powered OEM turbo cars are free. It may get your car a closer look from a picky tech (who may notice other things), but no one is failing you for an IC. And if they do, make them get out the book.

Technically, ANY IC is legal provided that you are using the OE turbo. See page G-7, http://www.bar.ca.gov/80_BARResources/ftp/pdfdocs/APPENDIX%20G%20final%2012-2009.pdf

 

I haven't failed yet by two different smog shops and one actually took off the engine cover and actually looked around.

 

This. Word has gotten around re: intercoolers and basically always being legal on a turbo car, it seems.