[Stanley Yahtzee]

im just wondering what our stage 2 brothers do when it comes time for inspection in nj. i mean people with full aftermarket exhausts and egr/tgv deletes. ive done some searches and reading but specifically couldn't find any info on the egr and tgv deletes.

 

[rqjoe]

TGV deletes will not hurt you since they are for cold starts. If your car is at operating temp during an inspection the TGVs are transparent......unless the inspectors actually get into the engine bay and look for the hardware itself.

 

[Stanley Yahtzee]

then im guessing it would be the same story for the egr since it wouldnt be active while the car isnt moving right?

so then ok i want to address turboback exhausts, ive heard that even catted downpipes fail inspections, im pretty sure in NJ they only plug into the obd2 port. im not trying to break the law per say, i would want to keep a fully catted exhaust, just hopefully higher flow. so im wondering if the aftermarket cats are just insufficient? or is it that the inspectors can tell you changed something and regardless of actual emissions they just fail it?

 

[MainFrame]

Most of it depends on exactly what testing they do where you live. If emissions testing is done under load on a dyno with a exhaust gas analyzer you will most likely fail due to high NOx levels with an aftermarket catalytic converter. EGR delete may also cause you to fail a sniffer test, but I'm not sure since there is no emissions testing where I live, only safety inspection.

Some areas will be much more strict with the visual inspection as well, which could also fail you with an aftermarket exhaust.. or they might not even do a visual inspection where you live.


You could always take your car to a state inspector and straight up ask them if they think you will pass or not with those modifications.

 

[Stanley Yahtzee]

yea they definitely dont put it on a dyno, and im pretty sure they dont hook a sniffer up either, im pretty sure they just hook up to the obd2 port.

 

[XJman]

You'll probably fail if they hook it to an obd2 for the simple reason you'll have a bunch of emissions related systems disabled.

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[rqjoe]

We have emissions tests here my area of OH and they plug into the obd2 connector. I am not sure but the way I understand it is if there are no codes thrown which would turn the CEL on, u will pass. So, as long as u have no bypasses or anything disabling the light that would otherwise be on, u will be good. At least that is the way I understand it to work here.

 

[EJ257]

If you don't have any DTC codes from the removal of emission control devices (which can be disabled through ECU calibration), and the readiness monitors are all online, if you only deal with OBDII testing, you shouldn't have a problem passing inspection.

 

[Stanley Yahtzee]

ok cool, so a stage 2 wrx is technically legal... now this is where most people would stop and say sweet ill take my 300hp now or w/e. but i want to know exactly why aftermarket cats fail inspections, and if they fail due to being insufficient surely they all cant be. there has to be a level of material quality or just sheer volume of cat that will freely flow as much gas as an engine can produce while still filtering it.. right? perhaps it would have to be too big to fit under the car, id accept that. but i want to know.

i know im a small fry but i dont really wanna be polluting more than i have to if possible. i mean if these big supercharged v8 muscle cars can meet these standards surely there must be a way for a slightly more powerful wrx meet them too.

 

[MainFrame]

If you don't have any DTC codes from the removal of emission control devices (which can be disabled through ECU calibration), and the readiness monitors are all online, if you only deal with OBDII testing, you shouldn't have a problem passing inspection.

I was just thinking about this.. will the sensors show ready even though they're disabled? I feel like I've heard about people having issues because they required a certain number of sensors to show ready for inspection, which didn't happen with the DTCs defeated. I've never run into the problem because I would always force readiness via RomRaider before heading out to get inspected. I think Cobb removed that function from ATR some time ago.

 

[MainFrame]

so a stage 2 wrx is technically legal...

Technically, no. Under federal EPA regulations it is illegal to operate a motor vehicle on public roads with ANY OEM emissions control equipment tampered with in any way.. this includes making changes to the tune.

 

[Stanley Yahtzee]

so its illegal ok great. there are inspections to make sure you fallow the law, fine. these inspections then fail to find my modifications??? im still breaking the law sure but like what exactly am i doing wrong here? if i find an exhaust system that perfectly mimics the ratios of gases that stock has then so what? it shouldn't effect mpg much as the power gains are under boost, the car should perform exactly the same when cruising as when stock right?

also what does ATR stand for?

 

[XJman]

You will be breaking the law, that for some is considered wrong. Not to mention if the part does nothing differently than the stock part then there isn't any point in modifying your vehicle because you will be dumping thousands of dollars and getting nothing in return besides possibility of warranty claims being denied.

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[Stanley Yahtzee]

well imho there are plenty of dumb-ish laws that just throw far to big of a net sometimes, im not gonna get into specifics... the stock part dosent flow freely enough im guessing, since people say you need a turboback exhaust to be stage 2, im just going off what ive read.

the new parts would flow more freely while still being capable of the same levels of filtration stock is. to make more power you must burn more fuel, and adding fuel to the fire means more smoke. i just mean the ratios of gas coming out is the same, there will of coarse be more of it. because im still polluting a lot less than a truck or muscle car, i just dont want to be spewing the nasty stuff out that cats filter out.

 

[MainFrame]

so its illegal ok great. there are inspections to make sure you fallow the law, fine. these inspections then fail to find my modifications??? im still breaking the law sure but like what exactly am i doing wrong here? if i find an exhaust system that perfectly mimics the ratios of gases that stock has then so what? it shouldn't effect mpg much as the power gains are under boost, the car should perform exactly the same when cruising as when stock right?

also what does ATR stand for?

You're talking about STATE inspections, which have different requirements on a county by county basis. There are a lot of situations where a thing may be legal in your state, but not legal federally (as in the entire country). Take marijuana for example.. there are several states which have legalized it, you can buy it in stores, yet it's still illegal in all 50 states under federal law. A lot of these sorts of things come down to enforcement. If it's legal in your state, then state/county/municipal law enforcement isn't going to bother you about it.. and it's HIGHLY unlikely that someone in Washington D.C. is going to send out U.S. Marshals to arrest you for tampering with emissions related equipment on your vehicle.

As far as what you're doing wrong (other than being a straight up criminal with no regard to the law), all of those things you have mentioned are designed to reduce the emissions of your vehicle. Getting rid of them will end up damaging the environment slightly more than if you left them alone (aside from potentially the tune.. it would probably be possible to retune the car to where it had even less emissions than stock.. the stock tune is made to work for all cars in all environments, so there are a lot of things sacrificed to make that work). And like XJ said, if you put on a different exhaust that's identical to the stock exhaust, you might as well have just left the stock exhaust on there because it's not going to be any different.


ATR stands for Access Tuner Race.. that's the computer software you can use to edit tunes on your Access Port, log WBO2 data, and view learning values stored in the ECU, among other things.

the new parts would flow more freely while still being capable of the same levels of filtration stock is.

You're talking about something that doesn't exist.

 

[Stanley Yahtzee]

i guess cats are kinda similar to a cars air conditioning system in a way, the more powerful the car, the less you will notice the power drain from it. it seems "high flow cats" may just be a bs term in a way, sure they flow more but they cheat to do it by not filtering as well.

 

[XJman]

You have to look at the I side of a cat. It's guts are basically a honeycomb structure that is covered in various catalysts to neutralize particular chemical compounds from exiting the exhaust. The tighter the honeycomb the more gas it can act on, the trade off is exhaust flow, likely speed and volume would be hampered.

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[zax]

i guess cats are kinda similar to a cars air conditioning system in a way, the more powerful the car, the less you will notice the power drain from it. it seems "high flow cats" may just be a bs term in a way, sure they flow more but they cheat to do it by not filtering as well.

You've got it backwards

Also, filter is the wrong word

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[Stanley Yahtzee]

yea i know its not filtration i just use that word because i dont know what else to call it. it breaks molecules and then those atoms bond to other things forming less harmful molecules. something like that.

what do i have backwards tho?

 

[MainFrame]

what do i have backwards tho?

I would guess Zach is saying that the more power the engine makes the more of a hit it takes from the restriction.


If you look at actual emissions results with a high flow catalytic converter vs OEM, the high flow performs MUCH worse than stock.. it's not even close.