[VR-4 Racer]

Hey all! Just joined the community the other day... I bought my ‘92 VR-4 from a mechanic who only used it at the track. The car has loads of road-track Performance parts, but my goal is to bring her back to be street legal and weekend track warrior. Overall our goal is to make her reliable, legal, & safe and then build her up from there... Our 1st project is to get her to pass CA Smog. I’ve replaced the race exhaust with the original stock unit from the Pre-cats back. Currently her biggest issues are she smokes a bit on deceleration (valve stem seals) and she pop’s out of 2nd gear on deceleration... Anyway I hope to be involved and learn a lot from the community ~ So Happy you all are here and to be a part of 3Si!

 

[lawdogg]

Welcome! Car looks great. I'm down in Los Angeles.

 

[jrhorne]

Hate to say, but if you are looking to pass CA smog at a "legit" star station, you are going to have to do a lot more than put the cat(s) and exhaust back to pass the sniffer test. You can fail visual just for the IC piping. It's a nightmare, so you are better of finding "another way" to pass... Trust me I live in SoCal and have had a heavily modded '91 for 12 years.

 

[OldMadBrit]

I agree with jrhorne, I gave up and registered my VR4 in Nevada where I have a business, office and 2nd home. NV has a classic car category that applies to any vehicle over 25 years old and which is driven less than 5,000 miles/year. They don't enforce the latter part btw.

 

[put_a_bird_on_it]

Nice Car! -Bay Area!

 

[OldMadBrit]

deleted

 

[Hydroman]

Man that's a very neat one, nice! My uncle used to have one back in the day. I'll come over tomorrow to help him install the parts from 4WheelOnline on his truck. I'll ask if he still got some photos of his VR-4.

 

[sdktheta]

Intercooler pipes and intercoolers are legal modifications on factory turbocharged cars in california. I can't find the general exception that CARB published but if you find a competent smog guy they shouldn't care. If you're really worried you can print out some of these as examples or find the general exemption by spending more time searching the internet:

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ww3.arb.ca.gov

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ww3.arb.ca.gov

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ww3.arb.ca.gov

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ww3.arb.ca.gov

TLDR they don't change emissions. If your smog guy fails you for them it's because he doesn't know the law or he's scared of getting his license revoked and is assuming if you've done an intercooler you've done other stuff too. I've had plenty of smog guys refuse to smog a car with CARB approved parts on them so it's just a function of finding someone who actually knows what they're doing/gives a shit about their job.

There are also places you can go that don't know the law and don't care about the law if you look hard enough.