Hopping-up your ride and being emissions legal is easy!

   Ok! Many people post comments on this message board about wanting to have a hot ride and be emissions legal at the same time. I notice that there is alot of worry when making choices about what parts to put on their vehicles to make them hot, but stay emissions legal. Well I wanted to tell you guys that you don't have to worry anymore! 

   First: Check to make sure that the part you want to use on your vehicle is not only a direct replacement or custom piece, but that it is legal for sale on street-driven cars in your area (most parts have 50 State Street Legal or For Racing Only stamped on their boxes, and most all speed shops will tell you wheather it's legal or not for street use). Second: Make sure that if you buy off the internet, to tell the seller your city and state so that you don't end up with an expensive part that you may not be able to use! Third: Keep in mind that when you swap stock parts for hot parts, that in addition to achieving more power, performance, and torque, you also naturally get gains in fuel milage(Granted, you don't haul but every chance you get!) 

   I know!, we all like to drive fast. But if we would just cruise at the speed limit more often, then we would notice just how much more gas we save with these hot parts, than with the stock parts! I'm not joking! Take at least ONE-FULL tank of gas and track your milage with each new, hot part, and then tell me if you save more than if you were running stock parts! I guarantee that you will save more gas with hot parts, than with stock parts! Anyone is free to argue with my statement about saving gas! But I just recently learned that common sense should tell us that if we would just start tracking our fuel milage every time we install a new, hot part, that we might actually find milage increases to be a natural occurance! But as Abraham Lincoln once said, "Common sense isn't too common anymore". So here is what I'm saying, "Hot cars can be EMISSION-FRIENDLY, tire-burning, monsters!"

   Have a nice one guys!   

  I'd like to hear your comments on this issue. Thanks!  

Your are correct. If the parts have a CARB EO#, then they are legal and will pass emission. This covers parts from the engine to the headers to the computer chips. It all depends on how much you want to spend.  

You need to rethink; "If the parts have a CARB EO#, then they are legal and will pass emission". These are mutually exclusive events.

If you live in California or a place that uses CA emissions law and proceedure; using parts with a CARB EO will get you physical acceptance by the referee, but does not guarantee you will pass emissions.

Bogie 

   Why do you not get a GUARANTEE? I could see if the part's designer lied by stamping their product as 50-State Legal knowing full well that it would not be legal for street use. For the most part though, at least 95% of all hi-performance parts that are produced and labeled as street legal will not only pass visual inspections, but WILL NATURALLY raise your vehicles fuel milage past the base requirement! Now I already touched base on this with my first post which started this discussion! Check it out and read it, but please don't send me any hate mail oldBogie!   

It's not "hatemail", I'm offering a caution based on a lot of years experience. I've delt with far too many people who added legal parts and came up with illegal results. There are many reasons for this, probably the most common is aftermarket parts added to high mileage engines.

Aftermarket parts that extract more power tend to eat into emissions margins. The factory supplies a wide margin well below the law when new, as the engine ages the distance between what it tests and what the law allows steadily decreases.

Building a fresh engine with some legal hot rod parts typically passes emissions with a comfortable edge. But putting more cam, different heads, fast advance chip, larger throttle body, or injectors, etc. can very likely get you into emissions trouble when applied to an older engine that is already loosing its passing margin.  

Bolting all this stuff on an engine may or may not work to your advantage in either power, effeciency, or emissions. The real world equation is not as simple as the purveyors of aftermarket equipment would lead you to believe. So "let the buyer beware" is really good advice.

Bogie

   Hey oldBogie, My '96 S-10 SS with the 4.3 Vortech V-6 (Original One), has 103,600 miles on it right now and I can go 340 total trip miles on one, full tank of gas with at least 4 gallons left to spare. I also just recently had it dyno tested, and it achieves 152 Rear Wheel Horsepower and 200 Pounds of Torque. I calculated to have gained 40 MORE Horsepower than stock with all the mods I've done! At my altitude that is prety darn good! I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I also had my truck in for emissions earlier this year and it PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS!

   As of today, my truck is running cleaner and better than ever since I started using (Royal Purple Performance Motor Oil 5W30 and Royal Purple's, Purple Ice Cooling System treatment), plus the (V-Power Fuel by Shell)!

    (Dirt, Heat and Friction) ARE THE MAJOR CAUSES for engine, transmission, and fuel system, deterioration. And if those three things are not faught against with the available weapons then you can expect to replace your vehicles running parts alot sooner than necessary! That is why I became a Royal Purple User! It is also why I use V-Power for the fuel system! If there was Sunoco Gasoline here in my city, I would be using Ultra-94! Have a nice one oldBogie!

That's interesting... I thought that part of the testing to get the number was proving that the parts did not increase emissions over that of the original parts. Maybe it also has to do with the combo too. Something to think about.. Thanks...  

OK what we're dealing with here is the difference between the emissions amount that's leagally mandated and the emissions amount that an engine actually produces.

Anybody that goes through an emissions test is familiar with the fact that their engine usually tests well under the legal requirements. The legal requirement is what the vehicle qualifies to. The manufacturers typically beat those numbers by a wide margin because the law also mandates that the engine perform within those guidelines for 100,000 miles or more with no maintenance.

The hot rod industry uses this distance between what a "qualifying" engine tests and what the law actually requires to develop and market legal parts. Now you may get parts that actually reduce emissions and improve power such as fast burn chambered heads, however, typically things that add power like more cam duration and overlap begin to eat into that margin between what's legal and how the engine actually originally tests. Things like faster and more aggressive ignition timinig, higher compression, bigger injectors with more pressure, larger throttle bodies, etc. tend to eat into one or more of the tested margins for HCs, CO/CO2, NOx, etc.

If you begin to strap these parts on an already tired engine of say 100,000 miles of use or more and it has already eaten into the emissions cushion between testing new and testing legal; it's entirely possible to bolt on emissions legal parts that take the whole thing over the line into failing the emissions test.

I highly recommend that if you live where you must qualify to license; that it's a good idea to visit a shop that can duplicate the state/local test and run a baseline on their equipment at the same time you also have to qualify for the emissions test. Doing both tests close to the same time is just to eliminate variables from the equation. Then after installing your hop up parts, go back to the shop and rerun the test to see if your modification are producing legal results. The reason for this is that while most states will allow and exemption if you have a stock vehicle that fails the test, they will not allow such an examption if the vehicle is modified with aftermarket parts and fails the test, that can include aftermarket parts that have an exemption. Therefore, you will be obliged to remove your hot rod parts and return the engine to original configuration, they may require this be done by a licensed shop and or throw other difficulties that cost you time and money before granting a license, or may simply refuse to license the vehicle. Remember, you're playing their game on their turff to their rules. The overridding rule, much like the California Basic Speed Law, is that you may do nothing that degrades emissions performance as mandated by law. Again you must keep in mind that the typical engine tests better than the law requires.

Bogie

   Hey oldBogie! I thought I would mention that my '96 S-10 SS with the 4.3 Vortech V-6 was designed to achieve 20 M.P.G. from the factory which it has! But that was before I started installing HOT PARTS! With all these HOT PARTS on my truck it not only runs like a champ., but how does 25 M.P.G. with EVERY tank of gas sound to you! I no longer have to worry about passing emissions because it DOES-SO with flying colors! By the way I have 104,000 miles on the engine, tranny, ect. I also am a Royal Purple Motor Oil user to which I recorded a 2 M.P.G. Gain in fuel milage this past week when I did my fuel-up! I say again that my truck used to get 20 M.P.G., but now it gets 25 M.P.G.! This has been a major reason as to why I want to continue installing more, and more HOT PARTS on my truck. You see, I want to keep watching the FUEL MILAGE go up along with all the GOOD OL' FASHIONED MUSCLE we drule over! Have a nice one!

    Hey there guys, I thought I would remind you all that there are three things that eat into a vehicles efficiency. These three things if left untreated can build up into a corrosion effect which destroys a vehicles efficiency power, therefore reducing emissions below the passing grade! This scenario is better known as CARBON DEPOSIT buildup. 

            1. DIRT: Earth or garden soil.

            2. HEAT: A form of energy existing as the result of the

                randon motion of molucules.

            3. Friction: A rubbing of one object against another.

    Keep in mind homies that there are four ways to combat

    CARBON buildup from destroying your vehicles running parts.

            1. Keep the inside of your engine clean and cool!

                Royal Purple Motor Oil can solve this issue!

            2. Keep the inside of your transmission clean and cool!

                Royal Purple Transmission Fluid can solve this issue!

            3. Keep the inside of your cooling system clean and cool!

                Royal Purple's Purple Ice cooling additive can solve this issue!

            4. Keep the inside of your whole fuel system clean and cooler!

                Many of the Premium Grade Gasolines like, Phillips 66's

                Proclean, Shell's V-Power, Chevron's Techron, and

                Sunoco's Ultra 94 will do the trick! 

    I also wanted to mention once again that HOT PARTS produce

    two things that improve any vehicle's overal ability to perform!

            1. Increased airflow which provides increased muscle.

            2. Increased airflow which provides increased vehicle

                efficiency that translates into greater fuel efficiency.

    And lastly I want to remind all of you again that if you proceed to haul but on the street, like say, going 70 in a 40 or 100 in a 65 more than 50% of the time, then you will see a reduction in fuel efficiency. But keep in mind that you will still be able to pass emissions with flying colors if you follow my advice that I have given to you in this post. Have a nice one guys, and happy EURO-CAR-EATING!

you are sounding like a broken record. I get the point!. There are times when high horsepower and fuel economy ,go together for example your vehicle. A 4.3 liter engine is a bit different than my 350 horse vortec racing engine that I have in my truck. I can get decent milage (13 mpg.) when I drive it like a Grandpa. Thats not the reason I went with a race engine. I'll suffer with 8 - 10 Mpg and have one hell of a good time doing it by blowing away little trucks like yours  

Bogie,  Wont or shouldent the retailer  have imformation on the exact     year V.I.N  and  maybe the vehicle that would be legal. I live in NY  but i am thinking that a C.A emission inspection you should keep and provide all aftermarket  papers on carb legal parts you installed at the inspection?.

I'm not sure where New York is on emissions, I know that the New England states have adapted California standards.

Yes you should keep all receipts for equipment that was used to modify the engine/driveline. As I stated earlier, the use of DOT/EPA/CARB replacement parts doesn't mean you'll pass an emissions test. You can expect that these parts were qualified on a fresh engine probably in a lab attached to a dyno. Not some old engine with 80,000 miles on it mounted in a grubby old pickup.

Aftermarket parts can eat into the distance between the emissions a new vehicle qualifies at compared to what the law requires. Since what the law requires also includes that the OEM certify the system good for 100,000 miles without maintenance. Therefore, the new vehicle is built to arrive at the legal standard after 100,000 miles of use. To do that the systems are better than the "law" when young and then age out to the legal requirement. The hot rod industry often supplies parts that put out more emissions than the OEM tested when new but less than or equal to the legal limit. However, as your engine ages it is also eating into this margin.

Sooo the problem you can accidently create for yourself is taking an older engine that is using up the emissions margin from age, then add to it a hotter cam, (or install a mix of parts) for example, that has a DOT/EPA/CARB exemption but it also eats into that OEM emissions margin. These two things together could increase total emissions to where all the margin is gone and you will now fail the sniffer test.

So what to do. The law usually states that you can get a waver to the tested results by taking the vehicle to a qualified/licensed emissions shop and have some X amount of dollars of work performed. Then retest, if it fails again then a waver can be issued to you.  If there are aftermarket parts on the vehicle, even though they are legal to have, you enter into this twilight zone where the basic law, that supercedes anything with DOT/EPA/CARB exemptions, states that you may not do anything nor make modifications that reduce the effectiveness of the emissions system.  This could put you in the position of having to remove your "hot rod" parts, though legal, because they along with the engines basic condition have violated the underlying legal tenant. Of course when all is said and done the engine still may not pass the test because of other things being distrubed going in or coming out.

This is a long way round of saying "Let The Buyer Beware". An example of "LTBW" is the Vortec head. While this is different from DOT/EPA/CARB exempted replacement parts; these things are sold all over the place and how many people put them on older engines without even checking for a legal exemption. Nobody selling these things says anything about the fact that Vortec heads, at the time of this writting at least, are not a legal substituion for engines that didn't use them as an OEM installation. Believe me there are plenty of surprised and dissappointed folks out there that didn't do their homework and were slipped into this modifiation by an aftermarket industry that's knowingly allowing people to get themselves into trouble. Admittedly this is on the extreme edge of my argument, but "Let The Buyer Beware" is running in full effect.

Now lets talk about gagets, to assume that if you buy every power and mileage improving gadget sold that the effect will be cumulative, this is not necessarily true. The purveyors of these things only give you idealized dyno information, seldom if ever do you know what else was done either in terms of additional parts, adjustments, what "adjustment" factors or even how the dyno was manipulated to get these numbers; i.e. was the dyno read on an up-pull or a down-pull. To stay simple an up-pull is starting at a lower RPM and accelerating the engine at a rate (another variable); a down pull is to read the power decelerating the engine at a rate, this adds power that isn't really there by including the flywheel energy that was stored on the acceleration side of the test.

Sooooooooo, all this adds up to "Let The Buyer Beware".

Bogie