If it made sense, it wouldn't have to be a law.
In a rational world, anything that passed the sniffer test should be legal, but that would put how many bureaucrats in Sacramento and Washington out of work? You know that's not going to happen.

 

In my opinion emissions laws shouldn't apply to aftermarket parts. 95% of vehicles produced probably never have performance parts installed on them. The small majority of cars that do get heavily modified aren't going to cause global warming or anything.

-Jon

 

Ford4ever,

You're actually right on the mark. Companies do have to pay a lot of money to get their parts C.A.R.B. certified. A company has to believe that they are going to still make a profit even after research/testing/production/certification/marketing. Also, I believe in addition to not increasing toxic gases in the exhaust, the part cannot affect the emissions equipment and must be considered a "replacement part". I would give anything to be able to throw a set of long tubes on my truck but they just don't make them for my truck in the sniffer approved variety. The wide ratio gear set for the AOD transmission from FMS is not 50 State legal, but hey...who's checking inside the bellhousing?

 

LOL, that's correct. I love our government, best legal scam around! A buddy of mine in CA has a '96 F150 truck that there are no CARB legal replacment cats for but his bud's '95 Bronco can use generic highflows apparently. That's what he told me.

Texas is fairly lax as if you pass the tailpipe and the safety, most places don't care what heads/headers/cam setup you got.

 

This is because the '96 and newer models use the OBDII system, whereas the '95 and older models use OBDI. The smog refs don't allow cat. changes with the OBDII system.

 

At least here in New York (except for new york city) our emissions inspection is still visual, as long as your car has cats of some kind on it you'll usually pass.

-Jon

 

My JBA headers are smog legal i all 50 states. Of course they were pretty expensive. Good thing the guy I got them from was selling them cheap
My vote would be for the ones out of summit. Even though my headers are/were coated, they still got a little rusty after 3 years.

 

Well, I ordered the Dynomax headers and when I got them, I found out they were the long tubes! I guess Dynomax doesn't make shorties anymore so I have to send them back. I ordered the Summit shorties. I know they're cheap, but it's probably going to cost me an arm and leg to get them installed so I really don't want to be spending close to $900 for something that will *hopefully* only last me 2 years when I do my 351 swap.