engine building VS. Emissions testing

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XZILER8

Senior Member
Ok, after a long long looooooooong time of saving my money, I finally have enough to start building my engine.

However, I have made the decision that when my lease is up in December, I will be moving away to either Arizona, Florida, Houston, or San Diego.

I plan on spending around $8000 bulletproofing the engine and boosting it. Now it would be quite a shame if I built the engine, and then moved somewhere that won't let me drive it because it won't pass emissions.

Is it a cut and dry fact that you can't build an engine and still pass emissions, or are there certain guidelines for staying within legal paramiters(sp?) ?

Obviously, I know there are places that can be bribed, but is there a way to stay legal?

If the only way to do it is through "hookups" or bribery, how do you go about finding such a place/person?

Thanks
 
Hey buddy. I understand why its hard.

Your going to want to do this, when building a motor for smog legal reasons.

#1 rule, is your going to want to do a bore size, and compression that is very similar to your stock motor.
#2 rule is get Hondata, or good management, and make sure the narrow throttle areas are perfect air/fuel ratio at the points they smog it at.

Jeff
 
florida is cake- they have no sniffer test at all.
SD, well, you know Cali.

Arizona and Houston are not like cali, but they still have some emissions program.

But really, there is NO reason why a 400 HP car can't pass the sniffer test.
if its running correctly, and not throwing out all kinds of N02 and has a cat on it, it should pass.
you've been here a while and probably have heard about/seen my set up- and i fully intend for it to pass the sniffer test
 
OK, so it's sounds like as long as I play my cards right, I can make some serious power and still stay legal. Thanks for the info!

Does my selection of parts affect my emissions output, or is it all in the tuning?

I will be running Hondata, and I will have it professionally tuned once it's built. Is that all I need to do, or do I need to pick certain parts in order to stay legit?

Thanks once again! I appreciate the advice!
 
Originally posted by Import Builders@Apr 1 2004, 12:04 AM
Hey buddy. I understand why its hard.

Your going to want to do this, when building a motor for smog legal reasons.

#1 rule, is your going to want to do a bore size, and compression that is very similar to your stock motor.
#2 rule is get Hondata, or good management, and make sure the narrow throttle areas are perfect air/fuel ratio at the points they smog it at.

Jeff

I'm still looking for just a bit more information before I dive head first into this commitment.

Import Builders: You say I need to stick with a bore size and compression ratio that is very similar to stock. Do you mean static or effective compression? If my effective compression ratio has to be similar to stock, then by my understanding, then there is no way I can add forced induction....right?

If that's the case, then there's really no point in building the engine.

Pissedoffsol: I know that you are running a very aggressive set-up with an even more aggressive turbo. If I'm understanding ImportBuilders correctly, then how can you plan to pass smog if your compression level is going to be significantly elevated over stock?

Also, I will not chince on tuning, I know whatever I have to spend will be worth it, so I will seek the best tuner to do the best job for me.

I guess when it really boils down, the basic question I'm asking is whether or not I can tune myself out of any situation? The other half of that question is whether or not I have to be very careful in my selection of parts and machine work?

Hopefully I'm expressing my thoughts accurately enough for you!

Thanks!
 
if you move here to cali ,and you want a turbo get one that is c.a.r.b approved.
There coming down hard on racing in california .all kinds of racing stings and cheap petty citations over nothing.
 
Originally posted by PHOBIA@Apr 9 2004, 01:20 PM
if you move here to cali ,and you want a turbo get one that is c.a.r.b approved.

There coming down hard on racing in california .all kinds of racing stings and cheap petty citations over nothing.

Personaly i think it will blow over after a while.
 
Originally posted by pissedoffsol@Apr 1 2004, 12:18 AM


Arizona and Houston are not like cali, but they still have some emissions program.


az only has emissions testing in the phoenix area.. whatever county phoenix is in. all other counties, to my knowledge, do not have any type of emissions testing.
 
Thanks for the info guys, but this thread seems to be getting a little off topic.

Does anybody know the answer to my questions stated above?
 
Hello buddy.

I think you misunderstand what a smog test really consists of.

First off, it only tests for very light throttle, NEVEr at full throttle. This is why VTEC is so popular.

Because with huge cams, you can't pass smog easily at all. So what does honda do? they develope a system that has a verys mall cam for smog testing, and then when VTEC hits, it switches over to a large cam.

Absolutely brilliant design.

At smog, they will test like at 4,000 RPM, holding at that RPM in like a gear, so thats like 10% throttle, and then they test at like 2,000 RPM right? Thats at 10% throttle.

So it doesn;t matter if you have a turbo with 100 lbs of boost, because they are not testing it under boost.

I say a similar compression level because it will give similar results to a stock car, and have very similar characteristics.

Have a nice day.

There are your answers.

Jeff
 
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