^^^^Nope, I was contemplating moving back to CA, and went to four shops in the Lake Arrowhead, San Bernardino area and was told no way. The fine if the station is caught is a $35K fine and loss of license. You need to know someone.

Lou

 

There are a lot of up sides to living in Cali, but getting your car smogged is not one of them! I laugh when I see people from places like Minnesota posting about how horrible it is to live in Cali because of smog. I think, dude, you're living in a place where you can barely drive the car for 3-4 months of the year because of snow! Anyway, if you are going to live in Cali and not play by the governments smog rules, you have no choice but to be creative in getting around them. And most people resort to paying a shady shop....

 

Mr Lou, if u come i'll get you pass sir

 

Yeah Cali is the place be. Year round cruise and golf weather. Yeah it's expensive but there are reasons why haha

 

Any 2011 or older SoCal guys running just headers have any problem with smog? Since there's no sniffer, and that it's pretty hard to tell if our cars is running headers anyway, if they plug into the car and nothing is red we should pass right? I plan to keep the stock exhaust. Sorry only asking since I have to replace my starter and my shop guy tells me that my passenger side headers is damage. Thinking about just upgrading to aftermarket.

 

That depends on if Cali has visual inspection as well.

I thought NJ phased visual inspections out as I've never run into an issue on any of my modded vehicles until this year. The attendant informed me that they are instructed to look under the car with cameras if they hear an exhaust on the car, regardless if they passed the plug-in test.

 

yes, California has a visual test. However, I've never known anyone to have a problem passing the visual unless the "illegal" modification is in plain site and easily identifiable as "illegal". I'm sure it has happened, but I've never had a problem with it nor have I ever met someone who had a problem.

 

True, with a car as relatively rare as an ISF they'd seldom know what to even look for. The guy I use inspects the length of my PPE headers and JoeZ exhaust using mirrors and has passed it each time.

 

where in cali?

 

SoCal, 714 area

 

Even if you have the CARB Sticker its still up to the smog station to decide whether they will accept your car to do the smog or not. I had an older car with an intake WITH A Legal SMOG Sticker on it and 3 shops still denied me even though the car was legal.

 

The chances are slim. If the tech doing the test for some reason didn't notice them, the header would also have to have emissions within the ECU's acceptable parameters (which on late-model cars is a narrow window) because a tuned out 02 sensor will show when they scan OBDII for the readiness test. What this means is if you do meet all these conditions, you are left with a header that makes very little power over stock anyways.

We aren't trying to rain on any parades, but in our experience, we have found that it's better to play by the rules, especially in states as strict as California.