Legal Turbo's In California
- Thread starter Eric1998Coupe
- Start date
Find an old greddy or edelbrock kit. These kits don't use chipped ecus to tune the car though so if you want the best of both world you might buy a chipped ecu and get a dyno tune, when smog comes around swap back to the stock ecu and what ever these kits use to increase fuel ( I believe the use a missing link and fmu)
usually my friends in the when the dyno was still being use for emission testing on obd1 cars, they would just take the wastegate spring out and put the stock ecu and injectors in before getting it inspected and puts everythign back afterwards
or we bring another car in the same yr range and plug it in the machine. the inspection machine usually inspect emission of the car from certain range of yrs of a each model and make
or we bring another car in the same yr range and plug it in the machine. the inspection machine usually inspect emission of the car from certain range of yrs of a each model and make
Last edited by a moderator:
Leaving a non carb legal turbo kit on your car will fail visual unless you pay the tech to pass it, no matter what a chipped ecu will not pass the obd2 test since it requires a conversion harness and cannot communicate with the data port (not sure if a chipped obd1 ecu will pass in an obd1 car but that's not what this guy is asking)
actually it doesn't matter if the turbo kit is there or not solely because having a turbo or not is not related to safety of the car or emission wise either i have done plenty of state inspections at work to know most other extras they might check other then safety and emission in California is maybe noise decibel. key to passing is making sure your cat converter is installed and its working properly. accessory belts in good shape and all the lights and seat belt work properly. and also because you can't use the obd1 ecu its why poeple put the stock obd2 ecu and injectors back in and take the wastegate spring out as it will stay open and not create boost so teh car basically running n/a like it did before
I see your location is new york, have you smogged a car here in california? I can tell you anything aftermarket requires a C.A.R.B eo number and if they don't see a number you fail visual. Trust me I have failed for having a cone filter on stock piping, I can guarantee a turbo will stick out like a sore thumb and fail
i have lots of friends from middle school that moved to your state and have relatives that live there as well they never have problem also all the on their cars is swapped and its B.A.R legal... the basics of state inspection is same and universal for all states because those are the basic standards set by our gov. other wise every state in the us would have to have some sort of B.A.R type system implemented and etc.. some state doesn't do it because is not part of the standard regulation.
90% of the turbo kits sold are not carb legal period and on technical grounds by us. standards. makes it technically illegal here in ny or any other states lol. just depends on the person doing it some might be nice about it some might just fail you for smallest thing. some states are more relaxed about stuff like that. you can still fail for the same reason here in ny. also so not much of a difference.
90% of the turbo kits sold are not carb legal period and on technical grounds by us. standards. makes it technically illegal here in ny or any other states lol. just depends on the person doing it some might be nice about it some might just fail you for smallest thing. some states are more relaxed about stuff like that. you can still fail for the same reason here in ny. also so not much of a difference.
Last edited by a moderator:
I'm not talking about other states, we're talking california, this state has the most strict laws. You can make a lot of swaps legal through B.A.R but again we are talking about C.A.R.B, anything that can modify emissions and can be seen by a smog tech needs to have a carb number. Intake,exhaust manifold, turbo all that stuff. If the tech knows that it's not stock then he will look for these numbers. Like I said before if you don't get a stickler then you can pay him a little extra cash to pass you, guarantee if I took my car to a B.A.R smog place or even a random smog shop they would fail it on visual before they even hook up the sniffer, s**t if you swap a b series into your d series civic the smog tech usually know and fails people, guys around here are constantly swapping motors every other year just to pass smog.
I'm glad I live in a non smog county, as long as I own my vehicle I never have to smog it again. If I get pulled over by chp though that's another story and I most likely will get a few thousand dollar fine and have to remove my turbo setup.
Edit: Ps you can edit your posts rather than double posting to up your post count. You have been here less than a month and have 1/3 my post count when I have been here 5+ years
I'm glad I live in a non smog county, as long as I own my vehicle I never have to smog it again. If I get pulled over by chp though that's another story and I most likely will get a few thousand dollar fine and have to remove my turbo setup.
Edit: Ps you can edit your posts rather than double posting to up your post count. You have been here less than a month and have 1/3 my post count when I have been here 5+ years
yea. but your kinda like saying it like as if California is a like a super super special case. lol i know its not, if you really thought about it our gov don't know any better. this just their method to help lower the emission. did you know nowadays most oil have very very little to no protection for our engines? because the gov only seen/cared that it harms the cat converter. they don't know/care about the harms it doing to the motor its self.
here in ny if your caught by the cops for not having cat converter on your car its illegal and its also a 1000$ + fine on your ass tooo. cali and ny aren't that much different only difference is you gotta pass the B.A.R system and we don't. your state gov is too hell bent on emission crap while ny is not so much. i'm sure my gt35r is not C.A.R.B legal in any state nor is anything on my car is C.A.R.B legal... matter of fact if you really want to get technical about it to prove a point. my car is illegal in every possible ways even by "ny regulation" . lucky you got a non smog county in your state..... no such thing here in ny, every county/city need smog testing. i just scan the vin bar in the dash and the sticker in the door jam and just plug the obd connector in and the machine does it thing and sends all the information to the DMV. but you guys probly use the sniffer for farther testing.
just out of curiosity which county is no smog over there?
you can just use OEM turbos all oem turbos are legal, other wise you guys wouldn't be able to own any cars like GTI, evos and sti, and other cars that came turbo charged from factory
Last edited by a moderator:
I do not know where this logic comes from....
??? really so the fact the that we have cars already turbo charged from factory if they wasn't C.A.R.B then its deamed illegal which mean it would have to removed or the car will not be sold in that state period
It's modifications that they are looking for. OEM turbocharged vehicles don't have the same emissions standards OR they meet them already from the factory. A civic with a turbocharger won't have the same emissions it was deemed to have when it was originally produced (as far as Cali is concerned). That is the issue you face when turbocharging an originally N/A vehicle. On the flip side, a properly tuned vehicle probably has cleaner emissions because of it's ability to burn fuel more efficiently. That is why the "illegally" modified part of the inspection is the certifiably retarded portion. I mean I've seen "CARB legal" on intakes, how the f**k is one piece of pipe more environmentally friendly that another? Is the filter element soy wrap or seaweed or recycled toenails? Who knows, the root cause of all this is that California is a cluster f**k and I will never want to step foot in that state.
CARB is concerned with any part of the car that modifies the emissions of the car FROM THE FACTORY. Ie your car did not come from the factory turbo charged, it has to be proven to the California air resource board that the product does not produce MORE harmful emissions than it did stock. Companies like greedy did all the CARB testing to earn the stamp, proving they don't emit high emissions.
i read the whole C.A.R.B and it specifically said the the part either gets a EO number( executive order) or if the part its self is a oem equipment part then its C.A.R.B approved
CARB is an acronym for California air resource board .... I'm sorry you're so confused by this topic.
i'm not confuse buddy i know what carb stand for.... and i know what they look for to get part aprooved. don't take me as fool cause thats just really disrespectful....
Never took you anywhere. I might suggest reading a bit more on the subject before we continue this conversation 
lol okNever took you anywhere. I might suggest reading a bit more on the subject before we continue this conversation
last time i read it yrs ago i skimp it. to be honest my cousins never really had any problems so idk... (he lives about 30mins away from LA, more toward so cal)
Last edited by a moderator:
D16Y8nSD
New Member
Wow...didn't mean to start this debate, but interesting read none the less. Well, I found a few turbo kits for great prices ( NOT eBay...lol). I am looking to make 300-350 whp, I just want this to be C.A.R.B. legal if possible and none of the kits I found are (I understand Greddy and Edlebrock "used" to have the C.A.R.B. stickers with their kits, but I called Edelbrock and Greddy and this is no longer the case...ugh). On another note, I could just register the car in Nevada (my mother's boyfriend still lives there...this may be the easier option, just a pain to drive up to Vegas just to get the car smogged and registered every year...ugh).
Does anyone know if I could piece together a C.A.R.B. legal turbo setup and some websites to locate these parts? Also, I would like to keep my A/C and P/S...gotta have the creature comforts as it is a daily, and I will be occassionally driving around with my daughter in it.
One last thing, hypethetically speaking, what if I already bought an Edelbrock C.A.R.B. legal turbo kit when it was legal and had it already on the vehicle...could I still get fined from that....what happens to all the people in Cali that bought these systems? are they just screwed out of their money and are forced to take the turbo system off the vehicle...???
Does anyone know if I could piece together a C.A.R.B. legal turbo setup and some websites to locate these parts? Also, I would like to keep my A/C and P/S...gotta have the creature comforts as it is a daily, and I will be occassionally driving around with my daughter in it.
One last thing, hypethetically speaking, what if I already bought an Edelbrock C.A.R.B. legal turbo kit when it was legal and had it already on the vehicle...could I still get fined from that....what happens to all the people in Cali that bought these systems? are they just screwed out of their money and are forced to take the turbo system off the vehicle...???
Last edited:
1. Registering is a PITA for most.
2. No you can't change the original kit in any way, it becomes non CARB
3. Old kits fall under exemption or grandfather laws. But you may want to contact mfg to double check.