As many of you know, I purchased longtube headers a few months ago for installing on my truck. I bought the painted ones because they were cheaper ($165), stripped them and repainted them with high temperature paint.

I finally decided that I'm not sure I have the time and expertise to the do the job myself so my brother talked to his good friend, who owns an exhaust shop, about doing it for me. The first thing he mentioned was that I needed to make sure my headers are California smog legal... Nobody had told me this before... I wasn't even aware that headers affected the emissions that were put out by the truck.

Did a little research and it DOESN'T look like the headers have a certified exemption from the law. What's going on here guys?! Ya'll recommended these headers to me... I'm can't place blame on anyone but myself for not checking into this but, how come nobody warned me? I didn't even know such a problem existed... So now I'm kind of stuck. I've got about $200 into the headers and about 4 hours of tedious back ache stripping and painting into these damned things (soo not worth the money saved) and now it looks like I can't even use them... What do you guys suggest I do?

 

move to another state that dont do emision test. then u can do what ever you want to it. but hat whole colledge think might get in the way a little.

 

Yeah... Somehow I don't see that as a viable option...

 

me myself would just put them on screw the law, if you get ticket pay it off who cares and if the ticket is to much money to pay for or some how affects your insurance or anything you take it to court get a public defender and just replace them before your court date and than they just drop your ticket no money is wasted, i did this when i had illegal tires that were to wide but you know what there is loop holes and ways to get out of it

 

This is different than being stopped by a cop of the side of the road. Tampering with fully functional emissions equipment (especially to install illegal performance parts) is a federal offense out here. CA is full of a bunch of environment hippies.

It seems as though its not a matter of IF I'll get caught, but WHEN. And that WHEN is my next smog date... In about a year...

 

oh i forgot to say that no one is going to really look at your headers and be like wow those are illegal, i mean how many cops pull you over and say sir lincese and regerstration oh and can i see your headers got to make sure those suckers are legal, the only way you might get caught is if cali does year inspections like pen state does i live in florida so i dont have that problem but still no one is going to see what is under your hood

 

so have every thing put on o2 sensors cat every thing and use you headers in the time of a year your headers are gonna look preety close to stack except the lenght most of those people dont pay attention to that stuff

 

Dude the cops aren't the ones that bust you for having illegal smog equipment modifications. It's the inspection stations on my smog dates every 2 years.

 

These are trained and certified professionsals. I'm sure they see this kind of stuff ALL the time... They know the difference between a stock exhaust manifold and longtube headers. They look WAY different.

 

i know and as long as u can pass the sniffers they shouldntgive u any trouble about the headers if you have any questuions about it go and talk to the people in charge and they can ok it for you.

 

I don't know about other states but in California the sniffer test is not all there is to it. We have the strictest emissions in the country. There is also a VISUAL inspection. They run your VIN on a computer to see which stock components should be present, then the inspect the emissions equipment to make sure it's all there.

 

Im kind of confused, what would be illegal about your headers?

I guess you could sell them and get a set that were legal for your state.

Hell if shipping isnt too much ill get em sent to canada!

 

Different exhaust manifolds or headers can effect the emissions that are put out by a car. Some headers have been tested and certified as being smog legal, that is, they don't produce addition emissions over the stock manifolds. My headers did not pass that test (or didn't get tested), as shown by the list of smog legal headers on the CARB website.

 

So is it a lsot cause or is it worth trying to get them tested?

 

Oh they'll test fine. I'm confident that I'll pass the sniffer test... But they don't have a CARB certification so they will fail the visual inspection... Just depends on how much of a douche the guy at the inspection station is.