California smog rules:

[EspanolaGuitarista]

Pin this please.
Got this from the Calfornia government web-site:
Engine Changes
Engine changes are legal as long as the following requirements are met to ensure that the change does not increase pollution from the vehicle:

The engine must be the same year or newer than the vehicle.
The engine must be from the same type of vehicle (passenger car, light-duty truck, heavy- duty truck, etc.) based on gross vehicle weight.
If the vehicle is a California certified vehicle then the engine must also be a California certified engine.
All emissions control equipment must remain on the installed engine.
After an engine change, vehicles must first be inspected by a state referee station. The vehicle will be inspected to ensure that all the equipment required is in place, and vehicle will be emissions tested subject to the specifications of the installed engine.

In other words, as long as it's has the emmisions equipment I could put an LS6 engine in my car. Or a S/C 3.8L with the matching harness and smog from that year. When you think about it. It's not that much more trouble, because you getting the right calibration the first time.

[ProjectMM]

just because the law states that you can, and even if your car runs better and blowes cleaner dosent mean that you can swap your motor. it is very hard to get past the state refery station, they can and do fail a lot of car for any reason they can think of. I have personally delt with this doing custom jobs, and it's very hard to get a vehicle past.
just to let you know, the rule still stands its not what you know, it's who!

[series8217]

My 3.4 DOHC Fiero passed:


One thing they don't make clear in the rules is that you also need the original transmission that came with the engine. So make sure you have it and all of the electronics are hooked up as they were in the donor car.
This means no swapping in a manual transmission with a motor that never came with one. They are very strict about this and there is no legal way around it.

[IsaacHayes]

the 3.4 DOHC came with a manual so you luck out there. I wonder if you could swap a supercharged 3.8 and say hey the camaros had a 3.8 manual I guess it depends if they know their stuff very good. I've heard of people doing swaps in cali and just taking it to get inspected and they look at the motor and close the hood (3400 swaps) and don't say a thing.

[rx191]

it's easy to do, i'm a ca smog tech and have done a few swaps, you just have to think liek the factory and hook everything up the way it came. the ref is normaly pretty good about letting you know what you need to do to a prodject to make it pass, they are no harder to pass than any other smog, they just test them poperly, like all smog shops should, ca is very stric on how we are supposed to test cars and there is a lot or reasons to fail them, just most techs are lazy and let a few things slide.

[geoffinbc]

Man its so easy here in BC. Build and go test it. If it has a Cat Converter and passes the sniffer test its good to go. 500CI Caddy with EFI in a Chevette if you want

[sharkey]

yup. it doesnt matter what you put in what, they test the emmissions for that motor, not the car. and they dont even open the hood, they just check to see if you have a cat and make sure your gas cap is working corectly. heck, they dont even test 98+ vehicles anymore, they just get scanned for emmissions codes and make sure the moniters are "ready".

although im sure this will all change and it will become very strict very soon. bc is trying to cut greenhouse gasses 30% by 2020, and they teamed up with the govonator to do it. im sure in the years to come we wont be allowed motor swaps or modifications that dont have a carb number.

[DEI37]

No emissions testing here! Makes it so much simpler.

[Kardain]

no emissions for me either (yet)... so I could run full stand-alone if I wanted, however, I'm moving soon to an area that does (not by choice), so I have to make it all OBDII compliant (as much as I can). WA is trying to enact the CA emissions laws as well, however that would only be in effect for the model year of whenever its enacted and newer.

[sharkey]

the entire west coast is going insane on greenhouse gasses.

i am running full stand alone. when i went in for testing, i had mylaptop hooked up for data logging and they made me unhook it. with the full stand alone, my car was cleaner than it had ever been. although with a car built 10 years before obd2, they realy dont care what i do to it, as long as i have a cat and it passes the sniffer.

[geoffinbc]

I could run a stand alone on an any OBD I vehicle here. I am not sure on the rules governing OBD II vehicles since they scan the ECM for codes.

[sharkey]

they only scan 98+ vehicles in bc. all 92-97 vehicles get the 90km driving test and an idle test only.