has anyone ever tired to put and engine cover over an TPI motor simalar to a LT4 corvette cover. Say someone wanted to hide some non CARB parts like a
Stealth Ram or mini ram if they was to modify a cover that only shows the top of the plenum and valve covers such as lt4 and ls motors. Could this deter a smog tech and his flash light, or do they remove them when they smog cars that come with them stock or would they pull my non stock cover off or make me take it off in order to smog. someone other then me had to have tried this before.

 

I would think a smog tech would recognize the cover as not factory issue, which would lead them to inspect even closer.

I doubt you'd be hiding anything, but rather putting up a big red flag.

 

I remember a company a while back that made covers for the fuel rails and the throttle cable linkage. I don't recall their name. I think it started with an M. They went out of business. I think thunder racing still has some of their throttle body covers. They didn't look to bad if I remember right, but they were way overpriced.
As far as it not passing smog, putting a cover would bring more attention than just leaving it alone. Most of the people working at gas stations doing smog wouldn't know what they were looking at in the first place and certainly wouldn't know if it was stock or not. I told one guy headers were stock on GTAs and that's why he doesn't see them often and he didn't even think twice before accepting my answer. The funniest part was watching him search for nearly ten minutes for my O2 sensor because it was underneath the car instead of in sight on the driver's side like it is on the stock manifolds. That was pretty funny.

 

If the smog tech can't see the component because an engine cover is hiding it, it is an automatic failure. If they can't find it, the component isn't there, end of story!

 

thats was kinda my question, I know it was far fetched for me to get away with a cover but new cars like the pontiac G8 unless you pull the cover you don't see nothing but plastic and the air filter box. when it time to smog them do they pull the covers are do they leave them in place

 

They only pull the covers if the smog tech wants to keep his license, and stay in business. The state has a fleet of cars that have all sorts of problems with inspectors who make unnanounced visits to smog inspection stations to see if the techs are doing their job. If the tech doesn't see a part that is required for the smog system, he is required to either find it, or fail the car. There are no other options. The factory covers on the new cars are designed to snap off easily to access the parts for the visual inspection. Removing those covers is not considered "doing repairs" so a test only station is expected to remove them to determine that the smog parts are there. Think of it this way, if you took a van in with an engine cover between the seats, the smog tech would remove the cover to inspect the engine for smog equipment.

 

The later model cars with the engine covers are all OBD2 electronics. The car's computer takes care of most of the smog tests itself. The tech simply plugs into the ALDL connector with his scan tool and reads the computer to make sure everything is working properly. No need to remove any covers or even pop the hood.