hey guys. do any of you know if i can get rid of the smog system and pass emissions in Maryland? they don't have a visual. they put the car on a treadmill and sometimes they'll look under the car with a mirror. they never lift the hood. will it work? thanx

 

You could definitely take out:
-smog pump itself (you'll need a new, rerouted serpentine belt, but this is quick & easy, assuming you know how to remove its pulley.)
-AIR valve and hose crap sitting on your psgr valve cover (quick & easy to remove, but now you have AIR pipes from the manifolds letting exhaust gas out into your engine compartment unless you plug the hoses or remove the pipes, below)
-AIR pipes/hoses eminating from your exhaust manifolds (PITA to remove, IMO, and you'll have to hit up your local hardware store afterwards and get something to plug up all the holes in your manifolds)

Doing all of the above would remove everything but the metal pipe that goes back from the smog/AIR pump to your cat (so the under-car check wouldn't look abnormal). If you want to remove this (a minor PITA, IMO), you have to weld or crimp or cap the AIR nipple on your cat to keep that from leaking.

Happy polluting! (Just kidding - the smog pump actually does very little to reduce emissions and does basically nothing for you once the cat is warm)

 

ok. i caught all of that. 2 quick questions:

1.) Will the car still pass the sniffer?

and
2) Can i simply re-route the serpentine belt, or do i need a shorter one?

thank you

 

(1) I don't have evidence in front of me as to what your emissions numbers would change to... but, judging from the fact that the AIR valve only opens the pumping of hot exhaust gas into the cat until the cat is warmed up... I'm guessing that you'd be driving to the inspection station, so your cat should be warm enough when the sniffer test is done that it wouldn't make a difference anyway.

(2) You'll need a different sized belt. I needed a 93.5" belt for mine (I measured with a string that I routed where the new belt would go), b/c I have underdrive pulleys -- I don't remember the belt length you'll need, but you can measure it on your own or maybe find it in a past thread (there's also a tech article here about the new belt routing that might have the new belt length).

 

i live in MD and they looked at my car just to make sure everything is there, but then again this is in Baltimore, it really depends on where in MD you live but i would be carefull doing that, the fine is like 2500 if they catch you!!

 

how much horsepower would you assume removing smog would be freed up? just wondering if you know...

 

Very little hp difference. Sure the smog pump weighs maybe 10lbs or so, but I heard the rule of thumb is 100lbs off the car means roughly 0.1s off your ET -- I don't think 0.01s will show up repeatably on your timeslips.

And as far as freeing up more power to the rear wheels by not having the engine spin the smog pump anymore... I don't see that making a noticeable change either (from both common sense and personal experience). Maybe a couple hp, if that?

 

Frees up the engine compartment pretty good though... don't have all that AIR %$#@ running around the engine.