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Just about 15 years ago, my wife (not at the time) and her father watched Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. The start of the movie features this Trans Am: After finishing the movie, he impulse purchased a modified 1970 Firebird on eBay. At the time, he also owned two GTOs of the same era, in mixed states of restoration, but neither in driveable condition; I think to some extent he bought the Firebird to have a car he could actually drive and enjoy. Ultimately, he didn't; for the most part it has sat unused. For the first ~10 years in a garage, but after they sold the house with the garage it has been sitting (covered at least) outside in the driveway right on the SF bay. Since then, my wife and I have been offering to take care of it for him, fearing that it would deteriorate pretty quickly in those conditions, without much success. Fast forward to the last year: we moved out of the area to the mountains into a house with a large garage. Our next door neighbor sold his house recently, and had a four post lift in his garage. He told my wife that if she wanted to get me a nice birthday present he would sell it to us for cheap. She, in turn, asked her father if he would give us the Firebird if we had a lift. That was apparently enough, so we pulled the trigger on the lift and had been waiting for months for him to send it up to us. (sidestory: my first car was a 1983 Rabbit; my dad saw a set of wheels with performance tires for sale cheap at garage sale and impulse bought those, and the rabbit was the first car he found for sale locally with the right bolt pattern. one of my high school buddies: "So here the lift is the wheels and the firebird is the rabbit?") Earlier this week, we were informed that they'd called a tow truck and it was on its way up to us that evening.     It's a 1970 (VIN tells me it was originally just a base model), but has been modified a good bit. Known modifications: - 1975 455 - formula hood - t-tops - shaved door handles - apparently it has shorter than stock gearing; not sure if this is just in the rear end or if the transmission is non-stock as well Known issues when he sent it to us: - tires are ancient and need to be replaced - real loud screeching noise if you try to start it too quickly, so will be looking at the starter gearing - takes a lot of throttle to get it to cold start and a good bit of warming up to get to a steady idle. - there's a wiring issue with the door release on the driver side. only the passenger side opens reliably and the driver side will sometimes open itself - various cosmetic stuff, nothing major. saggy headliner. Our intent is mainly to get the car into decent and safe running order to enjoy occasionally cruising around in, and have a hobby car to work on along the way. I'm a pretty novice mechanic: I have what I think is a workable understanding in theory about how most of a car works, but have not been in a situation where I could realistically apply any of that or get practical experience since high school. The extent of my actual experience is assisting my dad with fixing anything that broke on our multitude of cheap cars growing up that he was comfortable doing himself in our front yard. So this will be a learning experience for me, which is what I'm looking for, including from you all. I'll start shortly with the things that I've learned about the car so far this week in my bits of free time. Steve French fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Sep 17, 2020 |
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Sep 17, 2020 19:24
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Things that I've learned so far: The previous owner (referring to the owner before my father in law here, throughout) apparently liked flames    and classy stickers (NSFW)   It looks like it's had some underbody encounters?  
Steve French fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Sep 17, 2020 |
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Sep 17, 2020 19:35
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Pretty sure my 2000s car has more underbody damage. The header damage in particular is pretty common on headers that hang lower than the stock exhaust setup, and it's not gonna hurt anything. Nice bird. I'd suggest extending the exhaust out to the sides or rear, but more because of the risk of carbon monoxide building up inside the car - unless you plan to always drive it with the windows down. I'd also suggest a carb rebuild - should hopefully fix your hard starting/cold idle issues. It's likely gunked up from sitting with gas in it.
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Sep 17, 2020 20:03
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My father in law had said something about the choke on the carb being missing, or not working, so I popped off the air cleaner to take a look yesterday. Manufactured in 1975, so I'm guessing this is the original carb for the engine? However, it's clearly missing some things. A caveat here: my prior practical experience with chokes and carburetors and the like is limited to chainsaws and lawnmowers, and pretty much only from a "how do I operate this thing" standpoint, not any understanding of how they operate (the oldest car I'd worked on prior to this was the 1983 rabbit, which had mechanical fuel injection). I'm basing all of the following on what I've managed to learn in the past week or so; if I've got anything wrong or off-base help educate me! In the interest of improving my own knowledge and anyone else reading who also doesn't know poo poo about poo poo, I'm going to share a bit of my understanding of how things work even if it seems elementary to most, in part to make sure I'm not totally wrong about any of it.  No choke at all on the primary barrels (the smaller ones on the left).  ...there are knots tied in the throttle cable? I'm assuming this was done to effectively shorten it. But why tie knots instead of just actually shortening it?  The secondary choke is always closed! I know there is supposed to be a hot air coil thermostat here to operate the chokes, and there's nothing. Here's where my rudimentary understanding of carburetors (and quadrajets, specifically) comes into play to at least partially explain the cold-start behavior (needing a ton of throttle): The throttle on the smaller, primary barrels opens up with the lowest throttle inputs. The throttle on the larger secondary barrels only opens up at much higher throttle inputs. The choke serves to decrease air pressure in the barrel, pulling more fuel out of the float chamber, making the fuel mixture more rich, which is necessary for cold starts. With no choke on the primary barrels, without a lot of throttle the fuel mixture will be too lean. Giving it a ton of throttle, however, will open up the secondary throttle, which has a permanently closed choke, giving a more appropriately rich mixture. It will only idle reliably after the engine is warmed up enough that the mix from the primary barrels is no longer too lean. In thinking about this more, I was also reminded by a friend of the importance of elevation: I'm at 6000', which in my understanding means it will run richer than at sea level (lower pressure, more fuel from the chamber). That's when I remembered that the previous owner was in the Denver area, which made me wonder if he intentionally removed the primary choke and the thermostat as a hacky means of altitude compensation? At any rate, it seems like I'll want to do something here, including adjusting for the high elevation. The full breadth of options that I'm aware of at this point: 1. find replacements for the missing parts, install them. probably rebuild the carb while I'm at it? 2. replace the carb entirely with another of the same type (either new or from a junkyard; my understanding is that these are not hard to find...?) 3. replace the carb entirely with something totally different! (open to arguments for this as well as specific suggestions) 4. switch to EFI 4 appears to be pretty expensive (first options I found with a quick search were ~$2k), but possibly the best option otherwise? Would this yield the best economy and performance? (I care a lot more about the latter than the former, but performance also isn't the main goal here, just a bonus) My understanding is that this would also deal a lot better with the high elevation (and changes in elevation as well?) In any of the first three cases, I would want to figure out how to tune it properly for life at 6000 feet. While I mull over all of the above, I've ordered a repair manual and a few other resources to learn more about the car and components. We'll be figuring out new tires (father in law also has a set of snowflake wheels we might want to switch to), getting it registered (it's not that far off from being at least drive-able), and next up is probably taking a closer look at the starter to figure out exactly what's damaged there and needs to be replaced. Steve French fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Sep 17, 2020 |
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Sep 17, 2020 20:05
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STR posted:Pretty sure my 2000s car has more underbody damage. The header damage in particular is pretty common on headers that hang lower than the stock exhaust setup, and it's not gonna hurt anything. I'm not toooo worried about the underbody damage. Was more just noticing it. The large dent in the gas tank is what's making me wonder a little more than the headers, though. I'll give the exhaust some thought. I do imagine we'll be pretty much always driving it with the windows down and t-tops off. We have very snowy winters and very dry, sunny, and warm summers (at least, the hours I'd be driving it) here. I can't imagine doing much cold or wet weather driving in it as a result.
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Sep 17, 2020 20:08
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4 barrel carbs should always have the secondaries closed until you romp on it. Sounds like yours is mechanical instead of vacuum. Yeah, your choke is just gone. It'll probably be easier to just slap another carb on at this point, sourcing the parts to get that one back to 100% will be difficult. As for the throttle cable, you can't just cut them (won't be able to reattach the end). That's definitely not the original cable, and may not even be the right one for the car/engine combo. But the knots do shorten it, and if it works...
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Sep 17, 2020 20:15
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STR posted:4 barrel carbs should always have the secondaries closed until you romp on it. Sounds like yours is mechanical instead of vacuum. I guess I had assumed that the end of the cable would just be bare and then clamped down somehow; in retrospect makes a lot more sense given the knots that that's not the case. Thanks for the tip re: carb parts.
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Sep 17, 2020 20:21
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Steve French posted:I guess I had assumed that the end of the cable would just be bare and then clamped down somehow; in retrospect makes a lot more sense given the knots that that's not the case. Thanks for the tip re: carb parts. Often the sheath at the end of the cable is clamped in place near the carb, so you can adjust that portion which effectively shortens or lengthens the cable. This one looks like it has a molded end of the cable, so there wasn't room for adjustment. Personally, I'd go with option 2, get a replacement carburetor that is the same. You can put the right size jets in it for where you live and drive around just fine - of course if you're planning on driving down to the ocean a lot or something, yeah you won't get peak performance. You'll be fine mostly though. However, if you've got the cash and the desire, go for a bolt on EFI system! It looks like they've come a long way since I failed at it a few years ago doing a junkyard EFI, which I was doing since it was cheaper and on an oddball motor and had support. (actually right now I'm a little upset, with how cheap these are compared to when I was looking, this may become another project in a couple years) edit: I just watched a little of the Holley Sniper install video and now I'm up to 80% this is what I would do. StormDrain fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Sep 17, 2020 |
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Sep 17, 2020 20:36
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Your secondary choke plate is there, but yeah it looks like the choke pull-off is completely gone, along with the primary choke plate. I was going to recommend an Edelbrock-made Quadrajet since ~20 years ago they bought the old tooling and started making direct bolt-on replacements. But it looks like they've discontinued that at some point, so now your options at $400ish are all rebuilds. Which is probably fine. If you're trying to keep costs down-ish, sticking with a carb is definitely cheaper. I'd be tempted to do a Holley Brawler carb and an adapter plate to convert it to the spread-bore manifold. Otherwise, yeah, a Sniper or FiTech or any of the other "self contained TBI" fuel injection systems would be my go-to here. I've seriously considered them for my Opel and the main reason I'm hesitating is because even their two-barrel options are way larger than that engine needs and I'd be stacking adapter plates to make it work.
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Sep 17, 2020 22:28
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Badass car. Don't old GM (and I assume also Pontiac) starters need a precisely chosen shim that backwoods hee-haws are likely to throw out or mismatch? Hopefully if that's the case, it hasn't chewed up the starter gear from backlash. I guess also make sure all the bolts are present; I worked on an SBC Chevy truck where the starter noise turned out to be the fact that only one bolt remained and the starter was rotating around that one bolt when you hit it. Looked great when you weren't trying to start the engine...
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Sep 17, 2020 22:46
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I think I said in another thread that I would just toss that quadrajet and get something new, it saves a lot of loving about if you are new to carbs. Most will come with an electric choke with is just 12v and ground and off you go.
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Sep 17, 2020 22:51
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I installed an electric choke and rebuilt the Edelbrock carb on my 350 a few months ago. Is wasn't terribly tricky to do, you just need to follow the YouTube instructions and not gently caress up the gaskets. Pretty sure that'd be the cheapest option. If I had to do it again, I'd go for the Sniper and put the old carb in a box for the end times.
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Sep 17, 2020 23:23
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that is one of the worst engines you could possible have and it most certainly was procured for a half empty can of stroh's when installed.
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Sep 17, 2020 23:46
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BigPaddy posted:I think I said in another thread that I would just toss that quadrajet and get something new, it saves a lot of loving about if you are new to carbs. Most will come with an electric choke with is just 12v and ground and off you go. Yep, I noted that, thanks. I'm thinking at this point that I'll probably do whatever is easiest/cheapest to get a fully functional carb, leaning towards a replacement. An EFI is certainly tempting, but more than I wanted to spend right off the bat / than I'm willing to commit right away. So I'll ease myself into this without throwing too much money away if I go the EFI route down the road. Elephanthead posted:that is one of the worst engines you could possible have and it most certainly was procured for a half empty can of stroh's when installed. I'm certainly aware that it's hilariously low powered; doesn't bother me at this point. I've got another car for actually going fast already (RS4), this car is for hobby-wrenching.
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Sep 18, 2020 02:31
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If you just want it running well and don't really give a crap about being able to squeeze every bit of horsepower out of that (as you noted) smogged-out 454, you can swap on a late-gen 454 TBI setup from the boneyard pretty simply. It's a very common swap on AMC 401s and given that you have a 454, you might even be able to bolt it on (possibly including buying the intake manifold from the donor? I don't know if it'll bolt up, but it's worth checking into maybe) instead of having to make an adapter plate. A few pages about this: http://www.gearhead-efi.com/gm-ecm-pcm-conversion/tbi-efi-conversion.html https://www.fourwheeler.com/how-to/engine/1801-junkyard-fuel-injection-conversion/ the page I first read about this from: http://www.bigscaryjeep.com/TBI_FAQ.html You can probably do it for under 200 bucks in parts. Maybe a bit more if you get nickel-and-dimed at the junkyard checkout counter. e: this is referencing swapping it onto an AMC motor, but the same rough steps apply to a GM motor of the same rough vintage, except you don't have to do some of the steps, like you might be able to just use the donor's intake manifold instead of making an adapter, and might be able to just swap the donor's distributor instead of customizing yours to provide cam synch to the ECU. Also, pretty awesome that you missed smog testing by 5 years, so you won't have to argue with a smog tech over this despite it being better than the factory equipment emissions wise. kastein fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Sep 18, 2020 |
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Sep 18, 2020 02:52
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kastein posted:If you just want it running well and don't really give a crap about being able to squeeze every bit of horsepower out of that (as you noted) smogged-out 454, you can swap on a late-gen 454 TBI setup from the boneyard pretty simply. It's a very common swap on AMC 401s and given that you have a 454, you might even be able to bolt it on (possibly including buying the intake manifold from the donor? I don't know if it'll bolt up, but it's worth checking into maybe) instead of having to make an adapter plate. the motor is a Pontiac 455, not a Chevy 454. a GM TBI conversion was the first thing i thought of too, since it would be slow, reliable, cheap, and complicated. perfect for a project car you don't need to drive right away. you have all winter to play with it!
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Sep 18, 2020 08:00
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Raluek posted:the motor is a Pontiac 455, not a Chevy 454. Crap, how did I screw that up? I was even discussing the complete incompatibility of the various GM marque big blocks and small blocks of that era with BigPaddy last week, I should not have gotten that wrong.
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Sep 18, 2020 09:56
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Was going to comment on that convo we had  it is a 1970 car so should be smog exempt no matter where you are so you can run pre smog parts but it is the compression ratio that kills it and getting that down means head work, cam or high comp pistons. Cheapest way is to find a set of late 60s 6x -4 heads. They have large valve and small chambers for Poncho heads.
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Sep 18, 2020 11:41
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I did some more poking around while drinking my first morning coffee today to try to verify/identify what's actually in there. This block casting number confirms that it's a 1975 455, as I understand it:  The head I'm seeing conflicting information, unclear from what I've been able to find whether this marked 5C was sold with the 455 for sure. It does seem like it was on the smaller end of what would have come with that engine, though?  The transmission is a turbo hydramatic (obvious) 350 (based on the pan bolt pattern)  I got a little lost looking at the rear axle assembly; couldn't really find much in the way of any identifying information. I'm curious about it in particular because of what I was told about the car having shorter gearing, I'm assuming that was done with a rear swap. The tag here says "use limited slip diff lube only", which I would guess means it's a limited slip diff. Did these cars come with LSDs?    I also learned that it has disc brakes on the rear.
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Sep 18, 2020 18:45
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The tag's a pretty good indicator that it's got an LSD. There should be some casting marks on the axle tubes somewhere but I'm not sure where they are on the BOP rear ends. You can always pull the cover and take a peek at the carrier. Edit: Check on the front of the passenger side axle tube. Boaz MacPhereson fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Sep 18, 2020 |
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Sep 18, 2020 18:53
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100% a 455, 1975 5C heads should be Chamber size 124.51 cc's Ex/In value size 2.11/1.66 Bigger values but the biggest chambers you can get so 7.5 to 1 compression and about 200hp. If you can find some 5C -4 heads those will be similar in spec to the 6X -4 ones I was talking about with the same valve side and get the comp up to 8.5 to 1. You can get edelbrock read to go heads that will get the compression to 9.5/10 to 1 but it is about $2500 for a set. I agree that the tag would be indicative of an LSD but pulling the plate will be definitive. Since it is a 1975 car and from 1971 onwards GM used the same rear ends you should be fine getting parts for it. Thing to check is if it is a 7.5 or an 8.5 ring gear. Hopefully it is an 8.5 but since engines in the mid 70s didn't make a lot of power I wouldn't be shocked if it was a 7.5 since it didn't come from the factory with a 455. You said you want it to just be a cruiser and something to play with rather than rip snorting power so you can just leave as it mostly, do the servicing and clean it up and it will be fine.
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Sep 18, 2020 19:38
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 We drove to the gas station today. T tops off, as is required by law. After the drive there was a little bit of coolant leaking from just behind the right side of the radiator (based on the location of the puddle anyway). On the list of things to look at now. I've gotta build a bike first.  "Daddy there's a car up there!"
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Sep 23, 2020 02:23
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Boaz MacPhereson posted:You can always pull the cover and take a peek at the carrier. That's what I'd do. Excuse to change the fluid anyway.
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Sep 23, 2020 04:07
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Steve French posted:
Nice. I guess I didn't realize that it already was running. Also I just filled up and my gas price started with a 1.
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Sep 23, 2020 04:18
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That's been a thing in this part of the country for quite awhile, so long as you get several miles away from downtown. I paid $1.70 today.  Seeing as I was using a 15c/gal Fuel Reward, that's pretty high, normally that'd be 1.60 where I usually fill up.
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Sep 24, 2020 01:03
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Wow. Didn't realize prices were still that low elsewhere. They never really dipped _that_ far in town here, but for the most part I don't buy gas here. 36 gallon tank on the truck gets filled at Reno Costco where it's usually at least $1 - 1.50 cheaper per gallon. Here is a bit of a resort town so gas prices are pretty inflated
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Sep 24, 2020 02:14
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I remember base prices of $1.40 over the summer for 87 @ Shell... before fuel rewards (which are typically 15c/gal once a week, if you have T-Mobile Tuesdays). ... probably helps being in TX though, where we have plenty of
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Sep 24, 2020 02:28
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StormDrain posted:Nice. I guess I didn't realize that it already was running. and yeah, it's running, just has a litany of issues to address. I certainly won't be driving it much or very far at all until at the very least it has new tires, and ideally the starter and carb issues are addressed. I'm sure more will present themselves in the near-ish future; the car has been sitting for so long. Oh, we did discover that the speedometer isn't working, so will be looking at the cable for that.
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Sep 24, 2020 16:36
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Steve French posted:I got a little lost looking at the rear axle assembly; couldn't really find much in the way of any identifying information. I'm curious about it in particular because of what I was told about the car having shorter gearing, I'm assuming that was done with a rear swap. The tag here says "use limited slip diff lube only", which I would guess means it's a limited slip diff. Did these cars come with LSDs? Probably a WS6 rearend from a Trans Am, if the disk brakes are GM, not aftermarket. 10-bolt 8.5" ring gear "Pontiac" rear (not the same as a Chevy rear axle,) and yes, the WS6 was available with an LSD. At least based on my limited knowledge, picked up from owning another 1970 GM oddball - an Oldsmobile Cutlass. Pulling the cover would easily confirm LSD-ness, and you could count teeth on the ring and pinion.
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Sep 24, 2020 19:40
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I'm taking a couple weeks off work soon and wanted to spend time on the car then, and wanted to avoid spending it just waiting for parts, so had some free time this afternoon to poke around at things. I took the starter off to see what I could find there:     So the pinion to my eyes looks like it's been grinding a bit but not toast, and there's clearly some damage on some of the flexplate teeth. I'm guessing that at least part of the problem is the starter itself, and not always extending the pinion properly, causing the screeching noise. I'm going to replace it, probably with a mini starter (due to the close exhaust manifold) no matter what. Wondering, though, what people think of the ring gear damage. It seems to me based on relative damage to each that the starter pinion is newer than some of the tooth damage on the flexplate? Does it look bad enough that I need to think about replacing it in the near term or that it could itself be causing the starting issue? On a different note, I did find some markings in the expected spot on the axle after scrubbing a bit, but can't really make much out of my reading of the code:   5R0 C035? 5B0 C035? I'm also going to order a replacement quadrajet carb and see what I can do about replacing it while I'm off work. Goal is to get something functional without spending a ton, given that I'm not sure yet if I want to go EFI. Any particular recs (for seller or part), or just find the cheapest available remanufactured/new part of the right type?
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Oct 18, 2020 00:54
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From some cursory searching, this is the only option I can find that's not just totally out of stock that's less than $500: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/urm-14-4178 Anyone know how to tell what sort of choke it has? The uremco site doesn't indicate either. How much should I care? If a carb is going to be over $500, that would get me thinking more about just going EFI sooner rather than later.
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Oct 18, 2020 02:21
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I picked up a new Edelbrock AVS2 for under $400 and it did fine. If you have to have a spread bore then Holley make a series of direct replacements for Quadrajets what will be cheaper and more tune able. One of those options would be my recommendation.
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Oct 18, 2020 02:50
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is there a reason not to rebuild what you've got? probably a good cleaning and a new set of gaskets would sort you out, unless you suspect there are actual mechanical problems with it like worn out bores for the throttle shafts then again ive never rebuilt a qjet so maybe there's something about them that makes them not worth rebuilding?
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Oct 18, 2020 04:36
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It's missing the entire choke assembly (and possibly other parts), for starters, and that's not something you get with a rebuild kit. They'd need another carb to cannibalize parts from... and at that point, you're gonna be wondering "why didn't I just swap the carb, this one actually has everything". Nothing really wrong with a Quadrajet except they're very finicky to tune. The throttle shaft wears easily too, causing vacuum leaks. When tuned properly they tend to get better MPG and driveability than an aftermarket carb, but they do take work to tune after a rebuild or if you swap one on from a different engine application. You need to be a carb whisperer to tune them, preferably using an actual O2 sensor. They're not "slap a needle set and go" like a lot of aftermarket carbs; they're very good carbs that need the right touch. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 14:19 on Oct 18, 2020 |
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Oct 18, 2020 13:50
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STR posted:they're very good carbs that need the right touch. I would argue that in some ways this makes it a bad carb. Steve French posted:5R0 C035? I usually try and skim the numbers lightly with sand paper to make them more legible.
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Oct 18, 2020 21:45
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Could be 5P0 too.
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Oct 18, 2020 21:52
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Steve French posted:On a different note, I did find some markings in the expected spot on the axle after scrubbing a bit, but can't really make much out of my reading of the code: Those numbers don't match the formats I'm finding for axle codes. http://chevellestuff.net/qd/rear_axle_info.htm http://www.hitmantransam.com/Pages/etrcodes.htm Too few characters, and the format is wrong. Not sure what's up there. quote:I'm also going to order a replacement quadrajet carb and see what I can do about replacing it while I'm off work. Goal is to get something functional without spending a ton, given that I'm not sure yet if I want to go EFI. Any particular recs (for seller or part), or just find the cheapest available remanufactured/new part of the right type? I'm finding throttle body EFI systems for <$1000. Considering that a new carb is $400, it's starts to be a tough call, especially when you will need to tune the carb afterward. Twiddling bits is so much nicer than soaking oneself in gasoline yet again. Never mind that your meticulous tuning will be out of whack when the weather changes. The QJet is a good carb, and really flexible, but not the easiest to tune after mods. The accelerator pump on the one on my Cutlass has never worked right, and I've rebuilt it like 3 times over the years. Probably a passage blocked I've never checked, since I'm not super savvy on primitive technology.
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Oct 19, 2020 21:00
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Yeah, I'm starting to think that a carb replacement is not going to be as much of a short term savings over a more long term solution as I had hoped. Given that I do live at elevation but eventually would want to drive over a broader area (sea level is not that far away), and weather can change quite a bit (even within a day, temperature swings of 50 degrees are normal), so if that impacts carb performance a lot as well it does sound like long term EFI is the way to go, and ~$1300 for a holley sniper doesn't seem too bad compared to $500 or so for a new carb. What cheaper EFI systems are you seeing, and would a holley be worth the extra money over something under $1k? I did notice that the holley site indicates that the sniper isn't street legal for a 1970 car, but I'd thought that 1975 and earlier was basically anything goes in terms of engine modifications with respect to emissions. Can anyone shed more light here? https://www.holley.com/products/fuel_systems/fuel_injection/sniper_efi/sniper_efi_quadrajet/parts/550-869K
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Oct 20, 2020 02:58
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In the absolute strictest sense it is illegal to modify emissions equipment on any vehicle built with such things in mind, and depending on who you ask that could be as early as 1967. In practice, because the feds don't inspect vehicles that they don't have reason to believe are here illegally in the first place, it's up to whatever state/county emissions you're subject to.
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Oct 20, 2020 03:30
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Adding to that, some weird laws in some states prohibit modifications that may even reduce emissions, unless they've been certified to work with that exact application (engine/trans/chassis combo). Reference: CARB standards... I forget if you said if you're still inside of California or not, but even if you're not, you're well past the cutoff year for emissions there, and you said you're up in the mountains anyway, right? So a smog check wouldn't apply. IIRC California also only does smog, not safety? So there's no reason for anyone except a really anal cop who got pissed at you doing 68 in a 65 to poke around under the hood.
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Oct 20, 2020 08:01
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