None in good ol' Iowa either, to be honest, I really didn't know they did any in any state other than Cali...

 

Drew, do you live in Onslow or Carteret County? Onslow is for sure an emissions county but I've always been unclear on exactly what they test for. They used to use the 'sniffers' in the exhaust but now it's just an OBD II test. I've been curious as to what I can get away with and if their inspection computer only tests for a CEL or "computer abnormality". I know fo sho, that if you have a CEL or have had one in the past ~150 miles/ cycles they will fail your inspection.

 

Two things I always do: clear all dtc's and take them a hard run nice and warm truck... That said, I live in carteret county, and there are no sniffers.. the pull the vin and get a graphic of the OE rig, and compare it to what they see... Last inspection I didn't go to one of my buddies, because I was in a hurry.. the guy who did it said "well, I guess four are better than three", and that was that..

I finished up my job tonight.. ended up leaving the cats alone.. it would cost me $1400 to replace them, and it just wasn't worth the risk.. that, and the actually look healthy.. really healthy.. using the same color codes like you would a spark plug, they were whitish..

My exhaust leak wasn't at the manifold.. all my little custom gaskets were holding up fine.. those special bolts I had did a good job too, but regardless of what is advertised, about half of them couldn't be reused.. I have stage 8's in there now, and the remflex gasket set..

The leak was at the collector.. the side closest the block.. when I pulled the donuts, it was obvious.. a little streak in the grime on both sides.. damnit, Jim..

I pulled the plugs and swapped them, even though they had less than 2k miles.. it is never easier than with the headers off.. besides, they were champ 12's, and not the cooler ones bit the ones with the short electrode.. I have autolites in there now.. the camps looked really dang good, though, which is encouraging..

When I fired her up, she was a knocking.. what a dumb *** I can be.. I swapped 5 and 7's wires.. straightened out now, and running strong..

The thing about doing things like this little project, is that you spend too much time under and around the truck.. I've found half a dozen things to do now.. my back cross block dowel gasket has failed, and I'm in need of upper ball joints.. I found that the steering fluid exchange is slowly leaking, and that I could likely stand new front u joints..

A brutha just can't catch a break yo..

 

Welp glad you decided to keep it simple, I lived in NC half my life, never knew about how crazy they are on inspections....

Oh, happy 2,000th post!

 

The couple inspections i had done with my muffler shell over a straight pipe didn't raise any eyebrows, I'm just sayin ...
i did have one guy looking at the gaping hole in the back of it say "i think that's going to leak." i simply said "no it won't." he lowered he truck and started it then stood there scratching his head because it wasn't leaking.
point being, if you wallow those cats out and slip a pipe through them and weld it up then you wouldn't have to worry about the inspection.

 

I hear ya bro.. the problem with shoving a pipe through it and welding is that it would cover an o2 sensor.. the things are about 3/4 the size, and somewhat shaped like a football.. the upwind sensor is about the location the stripe would be on a football.. if I were to just relocate it, it would defeat the purpose of doing it to begin with, because it would be obvious. If we were talking your average run of the mil catalytic converter, I'd do what you suggest (and did), in a heartbeat..

 

 

If someone figures out how to fool the PCM / O2 sensors let me know PLEASE.

You guy's have it easy, SO CAL smog inspections, a true PITA. The only good thing, is my truck is a 8800# gvw, so the inspection station guy's won't put it on their dyno?? so they just use the sniffer & the OBD II plug.

NT

 

I hear ya. Welding in tight spaces sucks anyway. And you would have to hope for an inspector like the one I've gone to a couple times in that past that just plugs the truck into the computer for the required amount of time (The computer will tell on them if they pull the plug early) and sends you on your way.

 

a friend of mine use to make a kit that would plug in between the o2 plug and change the voltage reading to the pcm. sold a lot to the honda tuner guys. i will send him a email see what he has or can build