tripower

Personally, I don't know if I'd chance it. You might get the guy that knows what he's looking at. If they send you to a ref station your car will be flagged on file and you'll most likely be sent to ref station for a very through inspection everytime it comes up. I talked to a guy that this actually happened to. His comment was you don't want to get flagged in CA. Now if you don't mind swapping headers before an inspection, that's different. Many people do that...back to stock for the test to avoid any issues.

The reality is shorties aren't going to really generate very much to the rear wheels. Long tubes are the way to go but those are also more obvious under the hood. I'd look at $$$ per HP when comparing potential mods for best bang-for-the-buck. (Or buy an E55! )

cnchung

I don't have the brains to do this installation, my tech did that for me. As far as I know, the headers are easy to reach but you might need to take part of the exhaust off before you can have a good view at it. Lucky the resonator is coming off, made it easier to do.

I left the car with him for one day to complete the job.

hkycoldrct

I sell airflow for a living and think these are not bad at all. A 'T' would be an abrupt 90 which we don't have here. The tube branches into the main with a fairly well designed 30-45 degree taper -- Not bad in my opinion. This car has a tight fit under the hood and for shorties these are not bad at all.

sales@eurocharged.com

Most of us are happy with our C32's. In fact, a Stage II+ C32 will be faster from red light to red light. With a good driver, the C32 will be faster around the corners too.

TemjinX2

most smog techs well let the visual go or you can just go to another smog shop. I'm just concerned if the car can pass the actually smog test with the headers.

cnchung

Good products, hard to find. Good drivers, hard to find. Poor drivers, everywhere.

tripower

Jerry, it's an inside joke as hkycoldrct is my brother and he's talked about possibly moving up to an E down the road! He's also looked for an early 70's Firebird TA on and off in the last couple of years. (No smog like my 65 GTO so it's open season on mods!)

I have no doubt that your assertion is correct. With carefully matched components and proper tuning an already solid performer can gain much more to the wheels and become a very stout performer.

tripower

I wouldn't bet the farm on it. When I went to smog one of my drivers in October there was a guy with an F150 in front of me. He had headers and a CAI and the tech clearly noted that on his test and he failed. Like I said earlier, is it worth the chance to get sent to a ref station and have the car really gone through? If one chooses to go this route I'd suggest pulling parts before testing every 4-5 years or whatever the current interval is. Why tempt fate?

TemjinX2

I dont know which smog shops you went to, but most of the ones i went to usually just ignore the head and cai or tell you straight they won't smog you with those mods. I really doubt the only reason that guy failed was because of visual.

I passed smog in my integra with header and intake sri. Most will let the visual slide but they won't bs on the actual test.

Also if your not sure, you can just get it pretested. If you fail a pretest, they can't ref you. If you fail the real test, then you have to go to a test only center.

I honestly doubt a tech can tell the difference between the c32 intake boxes and the sl55. Also the let headers have no markings so it would pass for stock on the visual side. My only concern is if these headers can pass the actual test themselves.

tripower

Therein lies the quandry...It's a dice roll on the shop you go to. The guy was actually getting pre-tested because he knew he wouldn't pass and he made sure with the tech that the results weren't sent to Sacramento. Regardless of the results of the sniffer test, the tech told him the headers and CAI wouldn't pass the test as there is no CARB number for them.

My issue with the CA test has always been the visual. In my mind as long as you pass the sniffer test in spec who cares what's done in front of the tailpipe. Of course that's way too logical for government thinking...

Now your intake comment brings up another interesting point. I'm with you there and I would pursue mods along those lines where nothing is obvious. For example, intake/head porting, throttle body porting, etc., where unless you really know the model car well, you'd think it was stock. I call this the "stealth" approach.

Most headers will make a car run rich before tuning, so I'd assume if you threw headers on and tuned the car you'd have no issue passing the sniffer.

c32AMG-DTM

LET Pulley Question:

Okay, this is a bit off-topic, but since this thread is already off-topic, I didn't think anyone would mind

LET used to offer their pulley in three size options, 178, 181, and 185mm. Most people were opting for the 185 (I think - at least that's my impression from mbworld.org posts) as it's a nice increase over all the other 178 pulley kits out there, of which there are several. However, it looks like they've dropped the 185 from their product list... which is odd, if this was the popular choice.

Anyone know the rationale for this? Is it simply an availability issue, or has it been determined that a size over 181mm really isn't optimal for the long-term health of the engine and/or S/C?

TIA!

sales@eurocharged.com

The pulleys are one of the items that we don't produce in house as of yet. With that said, there were a few members that ordered the 185mm setup and had to wait a few months before it arrived. This is unacceptable, so Erick and I agreed that we would remove the product from the website until a reliable source could be found. It will be a few more months before these pulleys will be made in house and our need for a "source" will fade.

We are working with a few manufacturers as of now and will hopefully be able to bring the 185mm pulley back out soon.

As of now, we have a short delivery time on the standard 178mm pulleys.

Hope this clears things up.

c32AMG-DTM

It does clear it up, thanks Jerry.

I debated just sending you or Erick a PM, but figured others might've had the same question... thanks for the quick response!

DarkXerox

Yeah I'd think that most techs wouldn't care, especially since our cars aren't old enough to be mandated for test-only centers (like my old 91). I figure that you go somewhere that is either busy (therefore doesn't have the time to throughly check), or maybe we should find out places that people passed with modded headers.

I dunno I think that it really would be hard to tell stock headers over the LET ones. Especially since they aren't polished and shiny like some of the other brands.

TemjinX2

If the guy was a absolute by the book type smog tech, he would've failed the guy automatically on the failure to pass visual. So he wouldn't have even tested him, since he automatically failed.

I went to one of those by the book smog techs and he said he couldn't even test me because my breath hose wasn't connected even though it wouldn't really effect the out come of the test. Because i would automatically fail because of the failure to pass visual.

Thats why i think it was more then just visual. He probably failed the 15mph test. Thats the hardest to pass with a cai and header. 25mph+ is easier because the cat usually warms up enough to be more efficient in reducing smog gases.


Like others have said the LET headers are not some ricer red or blue color, so can pass for stock easily. Hence why i ask if the headers can pass smog.

I already know headers on a 1.8L 4cyclinder doesn't really effect smog, but i know on higher displacement engines, headers have more of a effect.

Eurocharged Rick

Thanks so much for the kind words Fred! I am glad that you are pleased with our products! you will have some pulleys headed your way very soon!

tripower

I think the guy was "pre-testing" to see how far out he was so the tech did run the sniffer test and advised on the visual "infractions". Luckily, my 10 year old Maxima passed easier this time than the previous test two years earlier! Go figure...

Bump for the OP and LET since we sidetracked their thread....