I'm still deciding whether I should with or without cats. Being in CA cops pretty much love to pull you over at random so cats may be the better idea. If i decide to go with the cats I will still be able to pass the sniffer test and most smog stations will pass visual as long as there are cats on the midpipe. Where are you located in Fremont?
About the spark plugs. I wanted to run a compression test on the car to make sure the motor is healthy before I start modding it. Should I just skip that all together?
i would (skip that all together).. but rreally if its got some miles change the plugs AND tho everybodys gonna bash this.. tighten them suckers down good.. i followed trq specs and still had one blow.. so again.. tighten them good
Well the car only has 54k miles and I already purchased a set of plugs. The new plugs are NGK's with double the amount of threads. I really don't like the idea of putting a plug that has more threads than the heads themselves. The whole situation gets me nervous just thinking about it. And ofcourse I still need to flush the coolant which brings up blown head gasket issues.
Cops will not harass you unless you give them a reason. I just put on a catless X and coupled with spintechs and side exit its loud as hell, but ive driven by cops at a good pace and dont even get a second glance. dont do anything stupid like drive like a maniac redlining all over and you wont have a problem.
I knew that h-pipe you had in there had to be modified in some way. the stocker should make you pass with flying colors.
So I just got back from the smog test station. All i can say is wow... The car passed without a shadow of doubt and put out nearly 0 emissions. Below is a comparison of the 2 tests.
First Emissions Test (failed):
HC
15 MPH: MAX - 51 MEAS - 171
25 MPH: Max - 35 MEAS - 90
CO
15 MPH: MAX - 0.48 MEAS - 0.56
25 MPH: MAX - 0.46 MEAS - 0.70
NO
15 MPH: MAX - 419 MEAS - 748
25 MPH: MAX - 706 MEAS - 1541
Second Emission Test (Passed):
HC
15 MPH: MAX - 51 MEAS - 1
25 MPH: MAX - 35 MEAS - 1
CO
15 MPH: MAX - 0.48 MEAS - 0.00
25 MPH: MAX - 0.46 MEAS - 0.00
NO
15 MPH: MAX - 419 MEAS - 21
25 MPH: MAX - 706 MEAS - 2
I'd say the car pretty much owned california emissions.