carb legal vortech question
 

Im about to pull the trigger on a used vortech v3 carb legal kit... i understand the kit itself is carb legal but i wont be provided the carb legal tune so i will need to get a tune for it... so my question is, is if i install it here(im in nashville right now) then move to socal next month and register it, will it pass smog because of the carb lgal sticker on the kit? assuming of course i dont throw any codes

Hopefully. As far as I know, there's no real way for the smog shop to know if the tune is carb legal or not. When you smog your car they will do a visual inspection, then they will plug into the OBD port and let the car idle for about 10 minutes. I was told by my guy that the computer is just looking for codes and odd running conditions. As long as the car has gone through its full test cycle, it should be good to go. There is no longer a dyno nor sniffer test for new cars. After that you'll be smog free for the frist 6 years of the cars life. I just brought my 2015 to CA from AZ. I had to smog it, but I won't have to take it in again until 2021.

Edit: I had an Audi A4 with a not carb legal ecu and it passed smog just fine with a sniffer test. Again, they're just looking for codes, not checking the map. The air pump is notorious for going bad on that car, so I had it turned off in the tune so it wouldn't throw the code and it still passed.

awesome! thanks! was going to get a turbo kit but i knew that would instantly fail plus didnt want to risk getting pulled over and having "illegal" mods to the car. wasnt worth the hassle to me

The problem here is Johnny Law. Every bored cop, who doesn't want to bother stopping real crime, will harass you for driving a modified Japanese car. It's mostly CHP that people seem to have trouble with. Building your car to pass smog is relatively easy; building your car to not get stopped and nickle and dime ticketed for silly mods like exhaust, being too low, or tint is near impossible.
Welcome to Commiefornia: where a straight piped Harley "saves lives," but a fart can on a Civic is a danger to society.

oh i know haha i used to live there all my life, just moving on back. my next door neighbor is the cheif of highway patrol. so ill run my car by him. hes really cool about it all. if he says itsa good i wont worry... ill only have the supercharger with stock exhaust plus my muffler delete. my buddy used to drive his 4 inch straight piped 450hp STI down my street all the time and never said anything haha

Well why don't you lobby him and get him to stop his police officers from stopping the rest of us. They have bigger problems to deal with.

if only i had that kind of authority haha