i called around to a few exhaust shops and everyone told me that they won't touch my car to put true duals on it...even with cats. they tell me that since the car didn't come with 2 cats they can't put 2 cats on.....if i had the dual cat option they sed it wouldn't be a problem...can someone tell me y this is?? they sed it was an EPA thing...now wouldn't 2 cats be better than one??

 

Large fine for dicking around with cat.........potentially 25,000 plus hooskow time if they wanted to push it

 

Exactly. Sometimes there are ways to 'convince' them to do it though... I've heard that telling them its a race car (ie. off the street) works well.

 

take the plates and the reg out of the car, and drop it off....and tell them its a race car

 

tell them that its a "race car only" works well with me also.

 

Luckily there is 1 shop around here that will do "cash" only jobs where the legality is left completely unspoken. It's one of those things where both parties knows it's illegal, but if they are going to do it, you know your part.....keep your mouth shut about it. Some things are best left unspoken.

 

I heard alot of states now are doing a deal where no matter what you want, if the car didn't come like that they can't mess with it. I heard Connecticut was the worse. Good thing I've been using the same guy for about 6 years now. He'll do just about anything I ask him too cause he knows me.

 

Maybe the car had two cats and someone changed the exhaust on it before you bought it and now you just want to put it back. Are they really going to know?

 

No kidding, some of cars came with one cat, others came with 2(G92 packaged cars). How are they to know the difference?

 

If the exhaust guy knows his stuff, '84 T/As didnt come with 2 Cats. Didn't happen until '89.

 

Still illegal unless you turn in the title.

Somethings I agree with in regards to clean air act, etc (such as cats), however, if you want true dual w/ cats I don't see the big problem.

Infact, a true dual setup, with 2 cats, 2 mufflers, will be a lot less noisy, and sound a lot better than a single.


-- Joe

 

I think if you used OEM comoponents, and OEM emission controls from a '92 then it is perfectly legal. But you can't develop your own system and expect it to comply with the law.

The routing + emissions system has to match a year, equal, or newer than year of MFG for passenger car engine class designated to the car.

-- Joe

 

ya but the state has no way of guaranteeing or even inspecting that......a cop says "thats a modified exhaust" and you go to court and say "no it isn't its factory" and you win.

they have no means of expertise at the enforcement level to determine what really is OEM and what isn't

its a law with no means of enforcement at all

 

I bet you lunch I could write you a cite for modified exhaust, and you won't have a leg to stand on.

It goes like this. You say "Your honor, the exhaust is stock".

I say, "Your honor, in my experience i've found that the average make/model of this vehicle is about 3 times less noisy than the defendants vehicle. The exhaust is either modified in a manner to make it louder than stock, or it is defective. At this time I would like to request a re-inspection at a state certified facility."


Trust me on this one.

-- Joe

 

how about how it actually went.....

"here is the carb exemption numbers, and paperwork from the manufacturer showing that the parts used are 50 state legal.....also note that the work was done in accordance with mass state law by a registered shop"

not responsible, have a nice day

 

We covered this last year. 50-state legal means nothing in Mass.

CARB EO numbers are for California. Thats 3,000 miles away. We don't follow their laws, we follow the MGL, CMR, and AG regulations.

Chapter 90 states:

"No person shall operate a motor vehicle, nor shall any owner of such vehicle permit it to be operated upon any way, except fire department and fire patrol apparatus, unless such motor vehicle is equipped with a muffler to prevent excessive or unnecessary noise, which muffler is in good working order and in constant operation, and complies with such minimum standards for construction and performance as the registrar may prescribe. No person shall use a muffler cut-out or by-pass. No person shall operate a motor vehicle on any way which motor vehicle is equipped (1) with a muffler from which the baffle plates, screens or other original internal parts have been removed and not replaced; or (2) with an exhaust system which has been modified in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the exhaust."


The seond you add a "50 state legal" flowmaster, and it increases the noise over what the stock muffler did, you violated the law. $50 cite.

If you got out of a ticket, good for you. I'm just telling you
what I know. If you wanna debate the law itself, go ahead. I agree, it's stupid. But it is the law.

-- Joe

 

Man, Im not going to Massachusettes then. That sucks.

 

i know what the law says.......but the law is also limited by the ability of the public to obey it within reason

meaning, that there must be a method of which to tell what parts are legal and what parts aren't legal.....the wording of the law is tricky too.....which makes it easy to beat from a legal standpoint.

it says amplify or increase......which technically is impossible.....all a muffler is capable of doing is lessening the sound of the exhaust by definition.

so you can play that angle as well......

and as far as the 50 state etc.......its legal for that product to be sold im massachusetts.......and its a muffler......it has NO other possible or implied usage

therefore the consumer has no way of finding out whether or not the part is legal or not...

so you end up with a double whammy......there is ambiguous language that describes the definition of what is "illegal"

then they don't delineate what terms or methods determine the legality of individual parts......that are sold legally, for their intended purpose (being mufflers) in the state

 

50-state legal is pretty much a sales slogan, and it does NOT apply in Mass.

Like I said, all an officer has to do is explain that in his/her years of experience, your car is much louder than the average for that make/model.

Is it a 50/50 chance of you winning? Sure. After all, it's up to the judge.

Now heres what *I* think should be done. The MGL should define a threshold of sound level. Inspection stations should inspect vehicle at two held RPM points, and pass or fail if the sound emitted exceeds the threshold. I think 90 db is fair.

Here is what the liberals think: There is a bill in massachusetts that makes it illegal to install, or use any exhaust component that is not OEM certified as a direct replacement. Imagine if that one passes?

And while we're on the topic of changing the MGL, I think all vehicles that are NOT OBD-II compliant should be waived of emissions testing.


-- Joe

 

FYI, North Carolina has done that very thing starting in 2006. Of course, you will still have to pass a "visual" test underhood to confirm that you at least HAVE all your emmission stuff still there.

...but if you're into this hobby and haven't figured out a way around this stuff yet, you need a new hobby.

 

actually the pass fail for noise level is left to the discretion of the inspector....if the inspector says "its too loud" then its too loud.

if you have a valid inspection sticker, thats another road to take.

dude.....that bill has been in the legislature about 200 times over the past few years.....it has never, and will never pass.....they aren't gonna put 1000's of custom exhaust shops out of business.

its basically a ***** waving of people in the legislature that have a pet peeve against loud cars etc.

the cop can say whatever he wants to, but he IS NOT a licensed inspector, and its very advantageous to you to point that out in the proceedings.

my brother got bagged for loud exhaust (hes a licensed inspector) and went to court....the cop said its too loud, he said "what are you're qualifications to determine that my vehicle is too loud"

the cop says, "because im experienced and i feel it was too loud"

my brother says, "well your honor im a licensed state motor vehicle inspector, and i have determined that it IS NOT excessively loud" showed his license.....

he won

 

under the hood, supposing it is orginal or the bodyshop is a good shop, there is a sticker called the Catalist, this has all the emission info about your car on it. this sticker will say if the car has AIR, PCV, the amount & types of cats. Mine says pcv, 2 o2s, egr, twc, air. the twc stands for Two Way Cat. If you change that sticker then it's kind of legal. i have no idea what years came with dual cat, but if the year on that sticker doesnt match the vin, well you get the point.

 

I may be wrong but the only way to run true dual exhaust under our cars is to run them side by side along the passenger side. I beleive dynomax makes a system for the 3rd gen f bodies that mounts from manifold / headers back. It may not be dynomax but i have seen it by someone. a search online may find it. if i remember right it used dual 2"

 

That's an interesting position where you have two experts in a room. I'd prolly have to side with the judge on this one, and agree that your brother may be more "experienced" in regards to the legality of such an exhaust.

HOWEVER, it is not beyond reason, that his position as a licensed inspector may be used in a fraudulant manner, to pass his own vehicle when infact it may not comply.

So whats this mean? It means people shouldn't be able to inspect and sign off on their own vehicles, and their position as a state inspector should not be introduced as evidence in such a case. It seems as if it is a major loophole, and I'm surprised a judge allowed it to slip.

If *I* was the judge, i'd say "Fine" issue a continuance, and request that the defendant get the vehicle re-inspected at another shop. If the re-inspection passes, then the citation dismissed and cost of re-inspection be reimbursed by the state.

However, since this all happened at a hearing I'm sure, by a magistrate (was it middlesex county ?), I can see why the outcome was what it was.

And yes, I hope the bill doesn't pass, but this is Mass. They just keep modifying something until it passes. Look at the gun laws!

-- Joe

 

It's actually already federal law that any alteration at all to the exhaust system is not technically legal. The government has also said that they will not enforce this law at this time, they simply reserve the right to do so in the future. It's up to state governments whether or not to enforce this law. But dont think it's not possible in your state for all exhaust modifications to be illegal, the states are only adhering to the federal laws. Any modification at all to any emissions system component on cars that aren't classical / historic / race etc. is federally illegal. This obviously hasn't stopped aftermarket parts and such, it's not something they're enforcing.


The EPA has closed most of the old loopholes allowing an owner to make modifications, and it's further broadened the definitions it uses to determine if a modification has been made illegally. It has to be strictly stock setups. Ex. No headers where you had a manifold unless the car shipped with headers under an identical chassis and engine combination and even then if they really wanted to they could force you to prove that the emissions has not been altered by running the much more thorough tests that factory configurations undergo.

Like i said though, it's good that this isn't being enforced. They would probably get a huge public backlash.

Here in PA, the law has less to do with if you're driving a legal vehicle than PennDOT's regulations (no, they're not the same thing). Even though there are no real laws on things like tint, exhaust noise level etc on the books for pennsylvania, there are regulations penndot has made, and you can be fined and such for breaking those rules (at least that's how it's done).

 

it was a judge on appeal

and since there is no regulation for decibel level, no one can really tell anyone else they're wrong.

further more......you can get away with noise violations now with EASE.

all you have to do is cite the supreme court precedent set a couple years ago by the harley guys up in newburyport that were getting harrassed by the police.

basically it came down that they cannot enforce anti noise laws without a decibel meter to measure the sound....and since the DB level wasn't in existance at that time, they found in favor of the harley guys, and said that any citation arising from such a circumstance would be thrown out

 

Mine didn't have a cat when i bought it... noone has said anything yet. Even the guys who ripped out the 2.25" and ran all new 3".


Of course i pay my current muffler man in the international currency of Bud light so he tends to just do whatever i want

 

Now after reading all of this, I'm very thankful I don't live anywhere else. I'm begining to enjoy Indiana. I use to own a '82 Buick LaSabre(Hearse), before I traded it for my 3rd gen, and I had no exhaust at all, it ran off of a nice set of headers. It had a big block in it, not sure on what it was. I wasn't into cars at the time, but when I went to get a new tranny, they said it was the biggest available V8 motor from GM in '82, that was stock. All you had to do was start that car, and the ground would start to shake, and the car at idle would do that cool, large-cam-shake deal, haha. Not to mention I was the only one in my town to own a car that was not only cool, fast, and loud, but I had to stop at the gas station twice a day. (Reason for getting rid of it: Obvious.)

 

I'm glad you live in indiana too.

Theres a difference between a performance car having a rumble, and someone being dumb and obnoxious.

-- Joe

 

Hehe, me too.. Donchya love em?
Hehehe.. Im gonna try that when i go down to the shop in the next couple of weeks to do my exhaust (FINALLY)

Rabbitt

 

I just wanted to say there getting rid of e-check in cincinnati so im excited.

 

lol, just make sure he's not a Miller man