Fiammenghi Exhaust and California Smog

It’s my understanding that if the smog tech looked and knew the headers were non-OEM that’s an automatic visual fail.

Now let’s say there is an older tech with bad eyesight and with the cats it still passes then maybe?

btw the car looks amazing.

I would add that when I last smogged I was worried with just Fabio’s mufflers I would get a visual DQ….

 

FAIL! Not in Cali. You can't even have aftermarket cats in cali.

 

I really want to be a good boy and pay my taxes, etc but it’s ridiculous in CA there isn’t a route to allow you to pay taxes (higher) and then smog exempt a 20+ year old vehicle with limited road use.

#buzzkill

 

Technically true. BUT. There is no visual inspection conducted at any place I know of in LA. It would be bad for business. There is no hard visual requirement right now. I have been told next year (?) there may be a camera involved in addition to the thumb print (?)

You can pass any car with anything in CA currently, IF the before/after pass data for the computers is “out there”. A “20xx Corvette LS1” instance has relatively a lot more volume and um…demand to pass so that before/after pass data has been collected and shared. Your OBII does not know what engine is in your car or even if it is in a car or sitting on a desk. For our cars that simple before/after data has unfortunately not been collected or recorded because none of us bothered to do it. I should have put it out when I flipped both 2003 SAI monitors a few years back but that would only apply to a small segment of us owners anyway.

I hope to do headers when my car is finally finished being sorted.

Like all my other cars.

 

Also saw your post on the auction and FWIW (others can chime in)…on my 2000 550 there wasn’t a tailpipe monitor, just the OBD connection.

 

Hope you get the amount you are looking for on the sale.

I thought it was cute how on the last BaT 550 (nifty’s) I made the comment that car is at or near the top of the best driver 550’s..,.the higher ranked of the breed being the extensively evolved
MSW cars….and then your extensively MSW evolved car was next. Hard to believe it was a coincidence but true.

 

Yeah the techs are not looking that hard and some are not that smart but you are still illegal in Cali and it makes the car harder to sell later. Illegal cars are more a liability than an asset. That's why cali use multi prong approaches for example illegal to use aftermarket cats, illegal to import aftermarket cats into cali etc.. Most of us are not 20 anymore and do not know the shops to pay off like we did when we were kids. Yes you may never have a smog compliance issue if if you do it is a royal PITA to fix it. Cali is also ever increasing compliance issues. Example it used to be you could have like only 5 of 7 monitors and still pass. Now you must have all monitors set to pass. Cali is going to make it harder not easier in our future. Who needs the headache?

 

It’s comical how many hurdles @Mirek has recently jumped thru to retain smog compliance.

Fingers crossed that someday CA has a method for low-usage i.e low-annual-mile vintage cars to have some sort of exemption so they can collect their tax and just let us have our dream cars.

 

California has a unique vision for itself and the country. We car enthusiasts are not part of it.

 

Washington state figured it out. Not worth the investment in state money to even do emissions testing. So, they quit. Odds are California will never get that smart.

 

I just love that the geniuses running California never realized that they would lose ALL of the gas tax (about 50 cents on EVERY gallon) with the adoption of electric cars as they have mandated. It’s a big state with a lot of cars.

Now they have to figure out how to change EV’s by the mile or something absurd along those lines.

 

That's not supported by the numbers. Trend from 2016 to 2023 is as follows:
Gasoline taxable distribution went down from 15.6 to 13.5 billion gallons
Gasoline tax rate went up from $0.278 to $0.579 per gallon
Gasoline tax revenue went up from $4.3 to $7.8 billion (inflation adjusted gasoline revenue went up from $5.6 to $7.8 billion in 2023 dollars or just under 40% increase)

Not a fan of California's aggresive taxation policies and laws, but big picture they're smarter than we give them credit for.

 

I think they are scrambling. The taxable distribution curve from 2023 to 2030 will appear a lot different vs the 2016 to 2023 curve based on the current EV mandate and subsequent impact on gas consumption (I think). They can’t keep making it up by taxing JUST the remaining gas burning cars.

https://abc7.com/post/caltrans-to-test-california-road-charge-for-miles-driven-instead-of-gas-tax/14828291/


https://caroadcharge.com/

Just checked my car on the “pilot”

 

Well, CARB just approved $.47/gal tax for 2025.

 

On November 19 I'll have had my 2023 Ford Lightning extended range Lariat for 12 months.

Today so far since new I've put 19,169 miles on the truck.

My wife drives a fully electric 2019 BMW i3.

It is nice and weird to rarely buy gas and diesel.

Theoretically a portion of the electricity on the daily drivers are supplied by our rooftop 9.9kwh solar array. How very "California"?

 

An additional tax or how much is the incremental if not the 47 cents?

 

Appears to be an additional $.47/gal
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/4984170-california-carbon-reduction-standards-gas-prices/

 

Wow

 

Randy I was pulling for you today.
Such a sexy car and great mods.
Hope you are happy with the result.
On my end I’m glad to see where it ended…I was surprised where Nifty’s ended but if yours went even higher over $200 that wouldn’t have been a surprise.

Do you have a replacement planned yet?

Maybe a 575 F1 and do a conversion?

 

Will pass smog 100%