High flow cats in California

I would like to install high flow cats but realize California laws are not in favor of this. I know many guys are running these. I would like to know if you are running into any issue passing smog? What do I need to be aware of if I choose to proceed with installation?

 

High flow cats are supposedly a violation (visually) even before they test your car, but I have had absolutely no problems passing my last two inspections with them on. It helps that I live in a small community and the testers here only see a Ferrari once every two years, so they wouldn't know what original equipment was. Tried with straight pipes once just for grins and didn't pass.

Good luck, Henry

 

Make sure the cat is 48 state legal ............that way its made to pass smog

 

illegal cats, non CARB certified

300 cell pass
200 cell pass as long as engine is healthy
199 cell good luck

I have tried all 3 styles on a smog machine on a 355

 

Good to know. I'm trying to figure out how they would visually inspect them anyway? They don't houst the car and inspect and I can't imagine that anyone would know the difference. These are Larini sport Cats so I know the quality is good.

 

I have a 355, so you can easily see them by looking down into the engine bay. Good info from the guys regarding the type of cat though. Does make a difference.

 

Non-approved cats are supposed to be an automatic fail in California if they bother to catch that on the inspection. Many smog stations are either too lazy to inspect or don't know what they are looking at anyway, HOWEVER if you do run into someone that does their job and knows what to look for, you are risking of failing. I went the route of having my OME cats re-cored by FabSpeed with high performance metal cores. To look at them, they look exactly like OME and I just had them tested. Very Clean!

 

I had installed Hyper-flow cats on my CS since 2008 and passed smog easily every time. I had also installed Evoflow (a new local company) cats on my 02 360 spider and I do not have any problem with passing smog either.

 

my smog guy last time went to a 3-ring binder that had pictures of OEM cats and compared it to the ones on my car. It looked like a official binder he was looking at.

 

not legal.... unless your gonna install them yourself.

How did you come up with this ?
If the internet was filled with all true stories.

Thankfully you have done your homework .

They are using tablets now as they are looking at all of the item to make sure they are CALIFORNIA CERTIFIED & 50 state legal -

 

I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that the smog guy in our relatively small town isn't that advanced this November...

 

R5Turbo2
How did you come up with this ?
If the internet was filled with all true stories.

Dear sir let me clarify - IT will pass SMELL ONLY not inspection

CAT companies are certified for other states by the cat not the car and pass other state emmisions

UNFORTUNATELY California makes the cat be certified for each car type that it is to be used on (very expensive) hence the CARB number that is placed on a cat that is looked at for compliance

(one will be hard pressed if not at all to find fully compliant "carb certified" replacement cats for CA)....if you know of one please let us all in on it......