Smog & Tunes?

[fooddude]

When smog time comes around..would a reflashed tuned ecu (ie: ecutek, etc.) be a problem?

Leave as? ...or, reflash back to stock?

(Cali smog in particular)

[arghx7]

Remind me... when you willhave to get the car smogged, are they going to hook up a tailpipe sniffer to it? Or is it just a visual inspection and plugging in to check for OBD readiness and error codes?

If you are literally just going to have a reflashed ECU only, you can flash back to stock. If there's a tailpipe test, that will probably be ok as long as you don't get rid of all the cats. The visual inspection though, you're at the mercy of how strict the inspection station is.

[Brick]

In CA there is the OBD check and the visual test if you have nothing that would fail the visual there shouldn't be anything in the OBD to fail. I had heard that they were collecting a database of ECU parameters to ensure you can't trick the ECU into never failing the car but that was in a magazine at the beggining of last year. You would have to ask a smog tech for a 100% answer.

[fooddude]

Correct me if I'm wrong ..but a lot of NA tunes currently out there, make your car run smoother, more efficient, etc., etc (hence, more horsepower)...so, theoretically, would this make the car run even cleaner than stock during sniffer tests too?

[arghx7]

The sniffer tests I'm familiar with for California cars are iirc at idle, 20mph, 40mph. They're all steady-state warmed up operation. A tune probably isn't going to change the emissions in those conditions if all the parts on the engine are stock.

[l0aded]

Side question.. If we go in with e85 would we pass smog? It is a "cleaner" fuel afterall.