I need to understand my smog system on my 1984 z-28 camaro. I recently bouht the car and it needs to pass emmisions for one more year, but after that, I would like to take all those HP reducing snags out. I wonder, do all those hoses help or hinder, and do they affect the inspection?

thanks ya'll

 

First, they're required by federal law to be there on all street vehicles, whether your state does emissions inspections or not. And yes, you will fail a visual inspection if you dont have them all there and hooked up during a smog test.

Two, while it looks like a mess, they really have no effect on your cars wide open throttle horsepower output. And, as long as the hoses are not brittle or cracked, they have very little effect on your part-throttle cruising, either. The only big one would be the stock factory catalytic converter, which can eat up about 10 horsepower at most. If you replace it with an aftermarket "high-flow" cat such as from Magnaflow, Random Tech, or Catco, you'll reduce that to about 1-2 horsepower. A small price to pay for clean air and to promote our hobby as being responsible, rather than gas-sucking, smog-belching pollution machines.

Take my car for example. I get 25 MPG on the highway and pass CA's tough smog check easily.