Who says you cant have power and be "green" at the same time?? 15 MPH: HC: max 110, meas: 93 CO: max 0.71, meas: 0.70 NO: max 772, meas: 42 25 MPH: HC: max 85, meas: 79 CO: max 0.59, meas: 0.45 NO: max 711, meas: 62 My HC (hydrocarbons) and CO (carbon monoxide) numbers are close to max, meaning I'm a little bit rich. I'll have to adjust the low-rpm tables a bit to compensate. Having 30lbs injectors will do that. But that NO value (nitrogen monoxide) being that low means the EGR is really working. The cats are 2+ years old too, not new. Click here for my mods! All I need now is a better 1/4 mile ET to go with my horsepower/torque numbers, and I'll have one of the best daily driven thirdgens in SoCal!

What's the best way to become legal, fast and green?

Early next year I'll be bringing an 87 IROC 5.7 and 91 RS 5.0 convertible into SoCal from AZ and HI. Neither Camaro has ever been smogged, so I expect they'll both fail miserably.

What's the best way to get these cars to pass smog and what are my options to overcome the difficulties? Are temp permits available during the process if it takes a while?

Make sure everything is there to be smog legal, bring them to Kevin to tune and pack your saddle bags and bring them to me for the rest. Ha Ha!

Yes, temp permits are available.

Good job on making clean HP. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person trying to do that. What brand of cats are you using. I have two Random Technology cats. A few years ago Car Craft did an article on the flow rates and effectiveness of different cats. The RT ones were the best on both accounts. If I remember correctly, on their 500hp motor the cats robbed a whopping 3% hp! Many of the high flowing cats flowed better than the stock cats, but did not come close to being as effective in cleaning the air. I got the Random Tech cats from Thunder Racing. Not sure if they still have them or not anymore.

If you click on the link to my mods it says Car Sound cats. They're made by Magnaflow.

niice! im swaping from a 305 to a 350 so i doubt ill pass smog

Why not? There are lots of 305 to 350 TPI and TBI swaps that pass smog easily. Its all about your combination.

I've talked to a smog tech who said if you propery tune the motor, you could pass smog with a stroked 350(383). You'l need to know a tuner that does PROM work. I'm sure Kevin91Z is capable of it.

i dunno ive heard horror stories and not to mention its a 91 chassis with an 89350 tpi (almost done) im hoping it will be ok the first time i took it to get smogged here in SD the place looked like a junk yard and the orientals could barely speak english soooooo im hoping they dont have a clue about the MAF and MAP set up difference.

Our cars are old enough that most techs don't know the difference between MAF & speed density systems. If it looks factory, or if you have A.I.R. tubes on headers, etc., you should not have any problem. Some techs won't pass any car with headers just because they are afraid the car might be one of the state vehicles designed to trap a smog tech into passing a car that should fail. Just go to another shop if you run into that problem.

If you think about it, most smog techs got their license by taking a class and passing a test. In the case of test only stations, they usually are not mechanics. In addition they test every kind of car for every year that is on the streets in their area. If they have doubts about what a car should have under the hood, they can look it up in a book, but they are usually paid by the number of cars they test rather than hourly. If a tech spends too much time looking things up in books, he cuts down his productivity and looses money. Result, if it looks like it has all of the required bits under thew hood, it only has to run the numbers to pass.

ok i know what your saying now, and it makes sense. it is stock for the most part i am putting the hooker 2055's and y pipe on it and they do have the AIR tubes so im good, i also have a catco cat so yea i kinda figured that they wouldnt know a 3rd gen like the back of their hand and know that its not supposed to be a MAF but instead a MAP. this smog shop is literally down the hill from where i live i can put my car in neutral and coast into the lot so i see everyday that any car goes there just to get a smog done, not to mention that there are about 5 smog shops down the other street all within a few miles so as you stated about making money off how many cars they get in and out and being competitive against other shops then they most likely wont care as long as it passes.

oh hey kevin, about the best daily driven 3rd gen in so cal i was just wonderin do you drive it everyday with 4.10 gears?

thanks russ and everyone else

If he has to look it up in the book he might notice it has a MAF instead of a MAP. Otherwise I bet he wont notice.

The 4.11's are great on the highway. I just shift into 6th and cruise at 65-70 MPH. Yes I drive it every day, its my only car.

One thing I forgot to mention is that your car will tend to run better numbers if the engine is hot. I drive the car to get the engine up to temperature, and then leave it running while I'm waiting in line for the test. If you shut it off to save a little gas while waiting, you risk having the engine get too cold to make good numbers.

ahhhh **** i forgot you had a t-56. lucky!
after this swap is complete i want to do that swap as well.
HOPEFULLY it wont be as hard as a 305tbi to 350tpi swap
thats cool info about it staying warm, i also heard that putting premium fuel helps too, is that fact or fiction?

I couldn't tell you if it's fiction or fact as I have to run 91 to avoid predetenation(probably due to the higher compression caused by the extra carbon build up over the last 230k+ miles).

Mine runs cleaner and still has the original cats that are like 17 years old. Dosen't make as much power though. Maybe 270 whp if I'm lucky.

It depends on your compression ratio and cam. Mine runs 9.3:1 with a mild cam and 1.6:1 rockers. The cam has almost no overlap. The result us that if I run anything less than 91 octane for the smog test, my nox numbers go "off the chart." I noticed that one of the other members ran really good numbers on 87 octane even with a lot of mods to his engine. I would "pop" for the premium fuel for a couple of tanks before taking it in for smog just to be on the safe side. If you can find someone who will run a "pretest" on the car before he hooks up to the computer, it helps to know what to expect before you get a failure. Unfortunately, you almost need to know the tech so he knows you are not a "smog nazi spy" from the state. The state doesn't want test stations to run pretests to allow you to fix a car before it fails because they want to have evidence of what "real world" cars are putting out before they are repaired to pass smog tests. By the way, I thought military personnel could register their cars in their home state and thus avoid California's strict smog testing.

Has your car passed with the new 30% lower limits.....with E85?

I don't know where those #'s are coming from, ours are still the same, no change.

I wish I knew too. I smogged 6/26/2010 and my MAX #'s were

15 mph - 80 HC / .52 CO / 549 NO
25 mph - 62 HC / .42 CO / 507 NO

These MAX #'s are exactly 30% lower than my 2008 MAX parameters.

I squeeked by with -

15 mph - 74 HC / .11 CO / 527 NO
25 mph - 61 HC / .07 CO / 381 NO

Not bad for a V6 pushing 500 hp

For my 84z HC max @ 15mph 2 years prior was 133PPM Vs 93ppm this time.ALL the max #'s were lower this time Vs 2 yrs ago, but the #s above was where i was failing.

Just passed by one point on HC, 92ppm.Failed at 114ppm 1st try.My car was cleaner across the board this year than two years ago, even before it passed.

[quote=Duck;3917907]What's the best way to become legal, fast and green?
QUOTE]

Move out of California as fast as you can!! LOL

I hope not, since Don just did the same swap for me. Carb'd 305 with an auto to a 350 tpi with a T5.

A 400+ci TPI can pass smog in ca dont worry about a 350 thats a walk in the park. The machine doesnt know how many cubes your motor has or what parts or in it just whats coming out of the pipe.

Just FYI: If you had to meet the numbers I have on my smog test for my '88 GTA, you would have failed too:

15 MPH:

HC: max 76
CO: max 0.71
NO: max 537

25 MPH:

HC: max 58
CO: max 0.40
NO: max 494

TA

Fkr's lowered them again. Another 30% reduction.
my 89 GTA Jan 2010
max/ meas
@15 mph
HC 108/108
CO 71/44
NO 767/366

@25
HC 83/83
CO 58/18
NO 706/315

So, like my van my HCs are high and the GTA will fail in 2012.

I am going to send a email to SEMA/SAN to see if something can't be done to stop this continued lowering of the pass rate.
Once a pass rate has been set for a vehicle it should never be allowed to be lowered. What CARB is doing could eventually reduce the pass rate to one point about what the average measured was when the cars were initially tested by the factory. It's probably their intent now, and they have the numbers, we don't.
And it's not just 3rd gens, it's all makes even my wife's Tbird.

Look at the date of my original post. This is from two years ago!

But my numbers for this year are the same, they did not lower. We dont have E85 here either, I dont think, nor would my car run on it.

Troy, maybe your pass numbers are lower because you live in Los Angeles County?

The fact that prop 23 didn't pass is what is allowing Mary Nichols and the CARB nuts to do this. There is nothing holding them back now from implementing more and more regulations on emissions. This is the reason gas prices are going up again.

from my printouts

LA County 2008 max/Orange County 2010 max
@15 mph
HC 124/101
CO 78/54
NO 1089/762

@25
HC 99/69
CO 58/40
NO 919/643

about 30% lower

If thats the case then is it from your home address or where the shop is? Meaning could I drive down to the OC to get my car smogged because its not as strict? Or is it when the DMV info shows up when the info is plugged in that they go off where you live, so it wouldnt matter where you go.

well its both the notice went to each country mailing address plus tested in each county. that is a good question though. perhaps there is a county somewhere with higher limits (it would have to be a po-dunk county).

if you look at Kevins post his 2008 numbers are closer to my 2010 numbers. perhaps OC was stricter to begin with and now LA is matching OC.

from this random article i found it sounds like smog is regulated by county, and that there were new EPA standards in 2010 forcing counties to come up with a plan to cut smog particulates etc, or they get cut off from federal funding. this must have been a result.
http://www.dailybreeze.com/latestnews/ci_14144207

I guess Texas has been ignoring the EPA so today the EPA said they were going to take over ALL air quality permitting in TX. Texas won't like that.