What do you California people do?
 

I know there's a few of you on here. Recently got a job offer in southern California, and I currently live in South Carolina. This car started off a California car (bought it when I lived there 10 years ago) so now I need to figure out if it makes sense to bring it back. Relevant specs are in my signature. Shipping looks like it'll cost about $1250. I'll probably be moving around the new year.
My options are...
* Sell it here as a whole car (easiest, least cost efficient, sad)
* Ship it out to CA and...
---- Keep registered in SC at a friend's address (questionably legal) so that I can enjoy socal roads with it
---- Use it as a track car (leaning this way; I have a tow vehicle, and uhaul trailers are cheap)
---- Swap a stock 03+ intake and exhaust onto it, attempt to pass smog? Is there anyone with a NA VVT swap and smog experience? How would they feel (or would they even know) about the megasquirt running the show on a pre-obd2 car?

Primarily wondering if anyone has experience with smogging a VVT swapped car. I'm sure it will pass the sniffer, but I'm a little concerned about the inspection given the ECU situation. Stock ECU isn't an option for wiring harness reasons.

Since it's a '95 body, you're fortunately in not having to do a plug-in test.

My own personal experience in SoCal was owning a '92, which was visibly pretty non-stock. Mostly-custom turbo system originally based on a Greddy package, with a Greddy EO sticker on the firewall. The car blew clean numbers, and I never had a problem passing inspection.

If you don't mind putting in some elbow grease, I would not anticipate having a problem with visual if you were to return the engine bay to a condition which resembles a stock '03. I have never heard of an inspector pulling up the carpet and visually inspecting the ECU itself.

Joe, its going to need to "return the engine bay to a condition which resembles a stock '95"

OP, basically you're fucked.

Options are as follows:

• Do nothing. Keep SC plate, rock it till it expires. Move back to SC
• Register at SC friends house, keep it under your name. This gets sketchy because CHP actually has a program where people can rat you out for trying to dodge compliance.
• Sell it to SC friend and then "borrow" the car. They better be a real good friend. You can keep the SC reg, insure it to yourself and technically not be in violation because its "borrowed" but its still sketchy due to above but has a more reasonable story attached.
• Register the car PNO in CA (planned non-operational) and NEVER drive it on the street and then tow it to trackdays. They won't issue you a title or plates, but it'll be "in the system" under your ownership.
• Try to register it to a PO Box located in a SMOG exempt county. They may still do SMOG on transfer which may require you to get it SMOGged anyway, in which case you are still fucked. These counties are way the hell out in the boonies so checking your mail becomes a real hassle.

If you are not planning on driving it on the street and just using it for trackday things, PNO is probably the "safest" path depending on how long you plan on living here.

Trying to mash 03 intake and exhaust things on to the car will only get you so far. It has to look stock and function as stock. By this I mean stock 95, not stock 03. Did you retain all the EVAP emissions stuff under the hood? They are going to check that it exists, and that it functions. Does the EVAP crap match the sticker on the underside of the hood? They are going to want to see that as well. Do you have a bunch of aftermarket fittings, splices or taps and things on fuel lines and electrical or does it all look Mazda stock? If it doesn't look stock its going to raise flags. I legendarily failed a visual inspection on my literally stock 04 WRX because there was a piece of electrical tape on a hose. They aren't going to be able to tell the difference between an 95 and an 03 MAF or ECU (which as Joe says they aren't going to check) but are you willing to re-tune the thing to pass sniffer emissions at idle and ~2000 RPM? Where are you going to find a shop thats going to let you do something so blatantly obviously illegal as plugging your car into the SMOG machine and retuning it until it comes out clean?

CAN you get the car emissions legal? Sure you can, but its going to be a nightmare without an 03 donor with proven and documented parts provenance. You'll need to do insane things like swap the fuel tank over to the 95 chassis and then have the whole thing inspected, in detail, and certified by a CARB/BAR Referee. I believe @Satisaii went through this rigmarole when he swapped a BP6D into a NA6 chassis. I'm not sure if he has this documented in detail anywhere but he may also be willing to stop by and and comment as well.

Good luck OP, try not to get lit on fire.

That's the letter of the law, yes.

Have visual inspections become significantly more thorough since I left San Diego in '13?

At that time, my experience was that the if the tech lifted the hood, and nothing immediately jumped out as "aftermarket," then getting on with the process so that they can get another vehicle into the bay as quickly as possible tended to be the focus.

If the vehicle, as a whole, appears to be "modified," then it's a different story. Aftermarket radio is fine on a vehicle of this age, but if there's an aftermarket steering wheel, gauges, air intake, lowered suspension, etc., then the car is going to attract more attention.

But if it's been done cleanly, I question whether an inspector is going to notice a stock-looking '03 Miata engine under the hood of a '95 body. Obviously this assumes that the turbo and whatnot are gone and all stock intake / exhaust hardware are in their place. (I've never checked- does an NB2 airbox attach to the mounting points of an NA body?)

It must have an OEM PCM to pass the Referee test. It also has to be certified as unmodified, retain OBDII coms, have no codes pending, and they will reset it during the test to make sure it is not spoofing the readiness state. The PCM was the hardest thing to satisfy the referee during my test. It would not return a VIN which then required a dealer having to certify that it was the correct PCM (Federal, 2005) for the emissions equipment. I tested 3 different PCM at the dealer to see if any of them would return a VIN. None did, but that helped me prove that mine was legit. If your car is a CA car, then you have to put in a CA PCM and emissions equipment. It was a pain, but it can be done.

I have a CARB legal 1991 with a 2005 VVT swap. I really should do a build thread on it before I forget everything that has been done to it.

Went to grad school at Clemson. Loved the bike riding there in SC. Good luck here in SoCal.

Must be a hell of a job offer to move from upstate SC to SoCal...

Here's a "cheat sheet" for you, taken directly from the results of my OBD1 1995 that I submitted for SMOG a couple months ago:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d9e19c8cd7.jpg

Remember, its not just a visual, there's a functional component as well.

Sigh... sounds like non op is probably the way to go. That way I can enjoy it for a couple more years on California tracks and then part it out if I ever want to get rid of it.

Efini - Definitely is an awesome opportunity

EXOCET!!!!!

94 here checking in - non-op so tow to the track and that's about it.....there are still some guys out there that can get you to "pass" for a hefty fee but they are few and far between...The problem in CA that I see is that less shops do the rolling tests (lots do the new plug-in style) and the ones still doing it in my neck of the woods are sticklers for CARB # stickers and verifying everything.....

Being OBD 1 you could try doing a CARB legal exhaust and an intake (any year) - I don't think they would look/find the computer to verify it was stock as its not on there list of things to check.....As far as the VVT actuator I dont think they would notice it as not being factory.....doing the CARB-BAR swap is painful....

I have looked into the Montana registration process just so I can bed in brakes in the neighborhood and go to cars and coffee events.
https://www.49dollarmontanaregistere...a-registration
​​​​​​​

​​​​​​Yeah, that's the dream.
If I had to guess, the majority of those things probably get sold to CA buyers to then SB100 them into non-emissions 60s Lotus7 clones. Or whatever. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't seriously considered one.

Registering in Montana seems no less risky than keeping it registered here in SC. Keeping it parked in a garage and not being a jerk makes it seem less likely to be caught by that CHP reporting thing... maybe run that until I'm pulled over once, use the "I just shipped it out" defense, and then register it non-op? I also still have the original California plates for it if I ever need to park it outside for an extended period...
I met the owner of exomotive and drove one of their cars at Atlanta motorsports park a few weeks ago - super nice group. It does sound like a lot of work, and I'm not sure what that gets me if I still need to follow 1995 smog rules.

Ahh, but that's the trick with the Exocet.

Here in California our legislators, in a fit of logic and reason that was to pass quite quickly, approved the BAR SB100 "Specially Constructed Vehicles" program. Car or Hot Rod culture basically started here and the program was enacted because they knew they had to have some way for old guys to register their crazy hot rod projects. At this point I need to be clear on something, you CANNOT SB100/SPCNS register a Miata. It started life as a Miata, it has a VIN that says its a Miata, and as far as the DMV cares it will always be a Miata. They only allow so many SPCNS vehicles to be constructed per year, and there are some additional hoops you have to jump through to make the process work. (I just did a shitload of hand-waiving, lol) It costs a couple grand in fees and there are a ton of inspections, but if you stick with it you come out the other end with a vehicle you can drive on the street with a license plate. Not all DMVs have staff that know how the SPCNS process works so it pays to do your homework. I used to be nearly impossible to get one because of the army of drones that were sent out by SoCal builders like Boyd Coddington and Chip Foose to gobble them up on Jan 1, but now that the economy sucks and the boomers who buy such vehicles are dying out, its a fairly streamlined process.

If you tell them its a 1995 Miata, it has to meet 1995 Miata emissions requirements. If you tell them its a 1967 Lotus 7 replica, it has to pass 1967 Lotus 7 emissions requirements, of which there are none. THAT is the beauty of the Exocet with SB100/SPCNS registration in California. We've got a couple guys here on the forum that have gone through the process that can probably help illuminate it better than I can, but I'll leave it to them to doxx themselves.

But is it worth $10k-$15k to buy a Exocet kit, destroy your Miata to built it, then pay another $1k-2k to title it, and then be stuck driving a jungle gym with no safety features other than a containment seat waiting to be crushed by a tattoo-sleeved backwards flat bill'd hat wearing late 30's dude in lifted diesel Dodge brodozer?

I submit that it is not, and PNO+trailer is the easy button here. But you do you.

Having recently left California, I can assure you that the state does not want you to modify/enjoy your car. To someone's comment above, the state has gotten a lot worse since 2013. It is all about getting people to buy new cars (state revenue), and not about the environment.

Good luck finding a place that will warm up the rolling road test (star testing site), and offer any leniency in passing you. The state's punishment for lenient smog test sites is draconian at best, and they do sting operations all the time.

If your Miata is your only passion, you can make it happen but you will have to have a completely OEM set of parts that get reinstalled every 2 years. People do it. PNO is the way to go if you want to keep it and are content to only drive on track.

We also whine about it incessantly, and then drink to drown our sorrows.

I would sell it if you can and save the transport fee’s. If you bring it you can try to smog it and maybe it will pass. If it is a clean 95 obd1 ca car it is worth money here. There are many that would be willing to do what it is necessary to make it pass smog. Good luck with your move.

Correct, specifically the drinking part.

Now that's one thing that is cheaper in California, as long as you're not drinking at restaurants. Especially if you live in the central valley, where there's nothing else to do :beer:

There was a time in my life that I thought I'd never say I fucking love Ohio. But I fucking love Ohio.

I have to deal with similar issues even though I live thousands of miles away from California.

Aftermarket and after the fact power adders were banned a while ago over here. Forget about swapping a V8 in a Miata, or a turbo, for that matter.

So, I take my car in the garage a couple days before the all important inspection, remove everything, and make it look as stock as humanly possible, only to revert it back to its twin turbo glory a day or two after securing my roadworthy certificate.
I pull the engine with the transmission twice in a week to do all that, and my only consolation is it gives me a chance to do major maintenance while the car's guts are out.

As for the MS, it is perfectly capable of passing the tailpipe test with a functioning catalytic converter. They do not check for codes on a 1998 NB.

I setup my car for this eventuality. Start with a FM CARB-legal kit. Left my LS coils batch fire. All I really have to swap is the fuel rail, coils, plug in my MAF and the ECU/voodoo box. Can do that in a single day. SMOG it, and decide whether I want to swap it back that day or wait until the next. Done and done.

Yeah, now that FM HAS a CARB legal turbo kit that is a solid option, but that's only been available for what, a year now?

Is FM willing to sell you the "make up parts" to convert your previously purchased FM turbo kit to a CA emissions legal spec FM turbo kit and also send you a sticker? Will they do this for someone who bought a "used" kit, or do you need to be the original purchaser? That's a legitimate question because I don't know. For decades your only option on a 1.8 was BEGI, and while they have an EO for the kit they've been physically incapable of supplying the correct parts to meet the requirements of the EO as it had been submitted for at least the last 10 years. That wouldn't however stop them from selling you a kit with a CARB sticker, but that's like the shadiest business practice ever. If you were cursed with a 1.6 there was always the CARB approved Greddy kit, as Joe explained earlier.

If someone gave me a CARB legal FM turbo w/CARB EO sticker for my NA I'd install it without hesitation. Unfortunately I don't have $4200 burning a hole in my pocket and nobody seems to be willing to give me turbo stuff, and $4200 is one hell of a cost of entry. Instead I'm fucking with a dumpsterfire of a M45 JRSC because I CAN get an EO sticker for it.

Plus I'm apparently some sort of masochist. :p

But none of this really applies to the OP anyway because he's got a Trackspeed EFR based kit in a NA6 with a BP6D swapped in. Lots of layers to that onion.

Call FM.

no u

Meh...already have a kit.

Wow. Lets clear this up a bit. There is only one carb EO number and it covers 89-05. There is one exception and FM has been upfront with this issue. That is the 99-2k CA cars with 2 cats. The 99-2k federal cars in CA can use the standard kit legally. There is an approach that seems to work for most and that is the don't ask don't tell. On mine I run the FM1 with a 1.8 in an early NA6. I just have made it look stock. FWIW I have not put my sticker on because I run 2 hoods and the sticker is fragile. I just keep a print of the CARB doc in the glove box.

Good idea to keep docs in the glove. Might have to do that...but honestly, I haven't been hassled much. The last SMOG tech just looked it up.

Guess who's got a CA Emissions spec twin cat NB1? lolol Suffice to say I'm very aware of the issue. It's quite literally the only NA/NB you can't* legally turbocharge here in California. I've considered selling it on multiple occasions and picking up a Fed spec NB1 so I can do legal turbo things, but its almost impossible to find a clean one at this point that isn't a million dollars or that hasn't been "bad touched" by someone

As long as you understand that's illegal (technically 2 violations, engine swap AND trying to pass it off as legal turbo is REALLY going to piss off a judge) and you are willing to take that risk and accept the consequences, that's fine. You do you. But I'd think twice about recommending such things to people who don't necessarily understand the insanity and the nuance in our emissions laws. All you need is a cop having a bad day and you are fucked.

Understand that I'm posting from a purely legal standpoint here, for me there is no grey area. If you want to do shady shit and hope that waving a handful of papers from the glove box will keep you out of trouble when you get pulled over that's fine but I personally can't endorse that, and certainly would not do so on a public forum. My shit stays legal because I've seen first hand what can happen if you roll the dice and lose. I've been a passenger in a car that's been pulled over by the CHP, had the hood popped, pictures taken and vehicle impounded. I watched the owner go through months of legal bullshit with the court system and thousands of dollars in fees and fines, and repeated appointments with the BAR Referee to not only get his car back but get his registration reinstated. By rights, the judge could have crushed his car so this was the "he got lucky" outcome. That was the big reason I abandoned the Kraftwerks Rotrex that was on my NB and sold it at a huge loss when it became obvious that the "CARB EO Pending" was never going to pan out. To me, running it in violation was not worth the risk.

* BEGI used to sell a turbo manifold and downpipe setup that accepted the NB1 precat, but they've been out of production for probably 10+ years now

Not that I am arguing...but wouldn't a carb legal mod on a illegal swap just be an illegal swap? Or is the EO tied to the car and not the running gear? Reason I ask is because clearly running gear matters in the case of state vs fed NBs.

I speak for everyone on this forum. I have a ban hammer, and enjoy fighting other peoples' battles.

You done? If so, acknowledge by saying nothing at all.

My original posts were not inflammatory in anyway. Also it has been said before and completely the owners decision.

^ He didn't understand the instructions.


Edit for clarity: deleted all the prior bullshit which led to this.

Yep, illegal swap is illegal. In the case of a legal swap it is tied running gear. On an unmodified car its tied to the chassis. In this case because we are talking specifically about FMs CARB EO its a semantics argument because that one covers 89-05, but clearly 1.8 manifold isn't going to fit on a 1.6 so you can't claim you've installed a CARB legal 1.6 turbo kit on your illegally 1.8 swapped NA6 chassis. You don't get to pick and choose like that.

The chassis kinda doesn't matter assuming the engine swap was done legally. You could put this 2003 Miata drivetrain and all its emissions equipment into a 1976 Pinto (a vehicle which must pass emissions in California) and after its approved by the Referee, it'll have to meet all the requirements of a 2003 Miata and it'll SMOG like a 2003 Miata. You can't install a CARB legal supercharger kit that was approved for the 1976 Pinto with the 2.0 Lima after the 2003 Miata drivetrain swap, but my understanding is you can install a turbo kit that is approved for a 2003 Miata. Again, this assumes the Miata drivetrain swap was done in a legal and approved manner.

As a highly intelligent and autistic asshole, were I feeling especially nefarious I could remove the emissions routing diagram from under the hood of my CA Emissions NB1, install the FM CARB Legal turbo kit and then "don't ask don't tell" about the missing pre-cat. Or better yet, I could buy an emissions diagram sticker for a Fed Spec NB1 or any NB2 direct from Mazda because it'll show a single cat in the system, and the year isn't printed on the sticker. Hell, maybe I buy a whole damn NB2 hood. My point is that with the knowledge I have of how the system works I could come up with a half dozen ways to fly under the radar, but that doesn't change the fact that FMs turbo is not a legal install on my CA Emissions NB1, regardless of how legal I make it look. You can play that game if you want but the juice isn't worth the squeeze as far as I'm concerned.

I'm great fun at parties too. :party:

That's pretty darn clever.

I'm not sure if it would work without also installing NB2 headlights and front bumper cover. I have heard anecdotally from people trying to retrofit NB2 projectors into the NB1, that things don't quite line up.


Anyway, I'm one of those guys who drove around San Diego for years with a very highly modified Greddy system on my '92. Basically, the turbo and manifold were the only pieces left from the original kit. Well, the RRFPR was still there, though I'd gutted it internally and blocked off the vacuum port.

But I did have the sticker on the firewall, and fortunately I never got hassled about it at the inspection station. Choosing your inspection station wisely is part of it. No money ever changed hands under the table, but I did go out of my way to patronize a one-bay shop way out in the grungier part of Vista, with a few dozen nonfunctional motorcycles scattered around, run by a guy who looked like the 1970's movie version of an auto mechanic.

Obviously, this can't be taken as a blanket assurance that everyone will always get away with that sort of shenanigans, but in my very small sample, it's not an ineffective strategy. Just one that carries risk.

Via occasionally tagging along on weekend canyon runs with the San Diego Miata club, I got to know several of the other folks there with forced induction vehicles. I don't recall seeing a single one of them which would have survived a trip to the referee station, though a few did have Bell or Greddy stickers.

Actually, that reminds me. When I first bought that Greddy kit, it actually came with everything EXCEPT the sticker. Fortunately, Irvine is not a long way from San Diego, so I actually drove to their US headquarters, along with my receipt, and explained the situation. The guy I talked to was weirdly casual about it. He walked over to a dispenser of CARB labels (literally, a spool of them mounted in a tape dispenser like you'd see in a mailroom) and tore off two of them and handed them to me. For some reason, I'd always envisioned those as being stored inside a safe which required two keys to be turned simultaneously.

I may or may not have sold that second label...

NB1 and NB2 hoods are dimensionally identical, the point of the NB2 hood would be the emissions routing diagram on the underside ;)

Source: I have NB2 nose and MSM headlights on my NB1, hood is definitely not a factor. Also have spare hood in the garage that came from a silver NB2
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f7c8eb1d8a.jpg

Intent was to cut it up for vents but I never got around to it. Test fit was fine with NB1 & NB2 front end hardware

Interesting. I'm honestly not sure where I got that from, then. Someone definitely had a fitment problem with something.


As to my previous post, I was younger then, and stupider. And I'm not recommending that course of action, merely making an observation. I'd undoubtedly have made different choices today. But then, such is life.

lights and bumpers changed NB1 vs NB2, but not hood. For what little that is worth.

I always understood that the bumper and head lights were different between the NB1 and NB2, but the hoods were the same. If I recall correctly, you can put NB2 headlights into an NB1 with the existing hood and bumper, but the bumper will not meet the bottom of the lamps (i.e. there will be an ugly gap underneath). To make it look right, you also needed to add the NB2 bumper.

Edit, ^^ he beat me to it. I type to damn slow.

That's terrifying. Was there anything else going on that led to the car being impounded? In all the other accounts that I've read from people who get pulled over and ref'd they received citations.

Unrelated hypothetical: what if I decided to visit CA in an out of state modified Miata and got pulled over? My state doesn't require a front tag or any type of vehicle inspection whatsoever. We dont even have vehicle registrations per say, our tag is considered proof of registration so only thing needed is DL and insurance when pulled over...

If you're visiting...you're visiting. Out of state DL and insurance would cinch it. Of course, if you have a CA DL, you have a bit more explaining to do, and may be told you have two weeks to register, I believe.

It was a whole thing. Story time!
We were on our way back from the Wednesday Night Drags at Sonoma Speedway, friend was driving his Integra GS-R into which he had transplanted a later JDM B18 Type R motor (B18C? I can't keep Honda motor things straight) and transaxle that we pulled out of a JDM half cut he bought off the internet. I just turned wrenches on big bolts and got dirty, he did all the electrical wizardry so I don't have details on most of it. Then he added cams. Many VTAK-y0 braps were had. Car was proper fast in a straight line, I wish I could remember what times he was running. It had a "CARB legal for the chassis" AEM intake and I think DC Sport header. Car also had a gutted OE Honda cat with straight pipe welded inside, and typical Honda fart can exhaust. Car was lowered and we had put a pair of whatever was steetable and sticky at the time on the front, but the front rims were obviously different from the rears. The car wasn't gutted or anything and we weren't doing anything idiotic, which is what makes the whole thing that much stupider. We also weren't 21 with a chip on our shoulder either, I want to say we were both in our very early 30s at the time. It was his first car that he has had since high school and he had been driving it like that for years. Not sure what he was running for an ECU (other than it being stock Honda) but the chassis was a '95 and the car always blew clean with the OE cat in place.

We left the drag strip after they closed at I want to say 10, then went to Denny's or something for food, then headed south for home. We got pulled over in Union City on surface streets at about midnight-thirty right after we stopped for gas. The officer was incredibly aggressive and had a real bad attitude and we quickly realized he was trying to pop us for street racing based on his line of questioning. We thought he was joking at first because we hadn't even gunned it pulling out of the gas station but it became clear that the dude was just looking to shit on someone. My friend and the cop had a personality conflict, in that my buddy had one and the cop didn't, and that led to an authority conflict where the cop was clearly enjoying his and my buddy had none. We told him that yes, we had been drag racing, at the track, in Sonoma. We showed him the time slips and pics we had taken but the cop was having none of it. The cop then claimed car was stolen and we were street racing and things started to go down hill from there. We ended up sitting on the curb in handcuffs while they tried to figure out if the car was stolen (it wasn't) but part of this process was them popping the hood and getting the number off the block and lo and behold it didn't match the chassis VIN, and the cop was instantly fully erect. He declared that the motor had been stolen (obviously it wasn't) and fed us through the warrant system to see if we were wanted fugitives (we weren't) threatened with a citation for bald tires (they weren't) and eventually, after about 2 hours on the curb in the middle of the night, issued a citation for street racing (which we weren't doing) and thanks to the "zero tolerance" on street racing that was popular at the time he called dispatch and hooked up the vehicle and sent it to impound, then let us go. We had to call a friend to get a ride back to Monterey County. While it was in impound in the bay area someone decoded the numbers on the engine tag and realized it was a JDM (y0) motor and then shit went super sideways. The only thing that saved the car was the cop not showing up to the hearing involving the street racing charge. After that it was just a mess of regulatory bullshit.

Somewhat ironically, we had discussed many years previous having those numbers milled off and then re-stamping it with his original GS-R block numbers but we felt that was "too illegal" and decided not to do it. The engine was obviously not legal in this vehicle but unless you REALLY knew Honda things there was almost no way to tell because OE Honda things look like OE Honda things because they are OE Honda things. We kept everything as OE as possible and aftermarket stuff was all proper legal to the chassis and tagged as appropriate. I'm still of the opinion the street racing thing was a fishing expedition so they could impound the car and look for other stuff, and for better or worse, it worked.

Apparent moral of the story: Always grind the VIN numbers off the block and don't buy gas in the ghetto if you have a loud exhaust. :giggle:

That makes more sense. It's ridiculously unjust that it happened, but the street racing angle clears things up.

Personally I just do the back-to-stock dance every 2 years and have accepted the risk of being cited if pulled over. I certainly hope it doesn't happen, and I do what I can to keep the car from sticking out (quiet exhaust, don't speed, etc). But sometimes you're just unlucky and run into a random BAR smog checkpoint, or a cop who has it out for you. Ideally I would pay the fine and get it resolved, but if things were to go really sideways honestly I would just part out and buy an ND.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about those. Hahaha!

https://www.bar.ca.gov/consumer/road...n_program.aspx



Don't worry, they are COMPLETELY RANDOM :jerkit:

So I'd be ok with a very obvious, none factory turbo, setup because the car is out of state? ( my DL would be same state as the car of course)

Yes. Absolutely.

So long as your car is registered in another state, you are not in violation of CA emissions law by driving a vehicle which would be illegal for a CA-registered car under CA emissions regulations. Note that if you are in fact a resident of CA, you are in violation of a different law for maintaining an out-of-state registration.

But if you are in fact a resident of another state, and your vehicle is registered in that same state, then no CA laws are broken by your temporarily operating that vehicle in CA.

So... is the Montana LLC scheme technically legal or illegal? LLC is considered a resident of Montana, LLC owns the vehicle.

I've never read anything which leads me to believe that it specifically violates CARB regulations, however there do seem to be three pitfalls:

1: It may or may not be a violation of CA state tax code (because of Use Tax), and has the potential, at the very least, to lead to your developing a close and lasting relationship with an auditor from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

2: Unless you specifically divulge to your insurance company that despite having registered the vehicle in Montana, it is principally kept and operated in California, then any liability-related claim arising from that vehicle is likely to result in a denial, based on a fraud having been essentially committed. And if you DO disclose that to your insurer, they'll very likely refuse to insure the vehicle in the first place.

3: Cops know about this. When you get pulled over, this will arouse more than the usual amount of interest on the part of the CHP officer.

You just gotta make it convincing. Take up chewing tobacco, wear a cowboy hat, smear horse feces inside your car and yell "YEEEE-HAWWW!!!" a lot when you get pulled over. Basically untraceable at that point.

That's lame.

Hehe.

Been doing a little reading on this. Apparently, this is quite popular with retired RV-fulltimers, who also tend disproportionately to claim their official domicile in Texas or Florida, due to the lack of income tax there. Lots of stories out there about folks who got pulled over in another state, while driving a Montana-registered RV, while towing a Texas-registered car, presented a Texas driver licence, and ultimately wound up being charged with such wonderful crimes as felony tax-evasion and fraud.


Also, I found these two amusing tidbits on the emissions.org website, on the page about Montana DMV:and
Uhm... Yeah, there are benefits to maintaining your vehicle. Seems like this isn't the kind of thing people need to be told. Or maybe I just don't know much about Montanans.

And, yeah, Montana residents can also voluntarily get monthly proctological exams done if they wish, however most opt not to. Or maybe they do. I don't know much about Montanans.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2a53b71d50.png

The Montana work around seems like a poor one, didn't even dig into it very far when moving from TX to CA before moving along. At most it might work for a track car that you just want to be able to "legally" drive around to test changes, street tune, etc. DD no way I'd rely on it.

It should be noted that another workaround used to be common in CA.

Specifically, not all counties in California have an emissions-test requirement. Mostly armpit desert towns in the eastern-central part of the state, where there aren't that many people (or cars) to begin with. So folks would jump through all sorts of hoops to get their vehicle registered in one of those counties, after which they never had to get a smog test again.

Obviously, law-enforcement wised up to this quickly.

Simply registering the car in a non-smog county doesn't actually make modifying it legal. Those are state, not county laws. It's merely that, for most people, it's the smog inspection process itself which causes problems, due to the visual portion of the inspection.

So, here you are, driving along in your 250hp sleeper and not drawing any attention to yourself, when you get pulled over for a busted taillight, or failing to yield to the Mexican families running across I-5. SoCal people know which sign I'm talking about

"Hmmm. Your registration is from Oakhurst, and yet here we are in San Diego."

And that's how you get sent to a Referee station.

Isn't that the one by the boobs?

Apparently, so do people from Istanbul, oddly.

The more I think about this, the more impressed I am by it.

Like, how the hell are you not merely familiar with that one specific sign, which is located on the side of a highway about 11,000 km from you, but also the particular term used by locals to refer to the architecturally-unique nuclear power plant which is a few miles south of it?

I mean, I know you went to school in the US, but god damn, that is some seriously specific and obscure knowledge.

Use tax only seems to apply when purchasing an item while living in California.
https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm

Incorporate Morello Tuning LLC in South Carolina, have some stickers made up. Tell CHP we tow this vehicle to events around the country (true) and keep it registered where our headquarters is (also true, friend's house in SC). Literally can't go tits up.

(Also, this is not my DD, not even the second vehicle. If I can't figure something I'll just register non-op and tow it to the race track)

??

This is the very first paragraph of the page you linked to:

California's sales tax generally applies to the sale of merchandise, including vehicles, in the state. California's use tax applies to the use, storage, or other consumption of those same kinds of items in the state.



I just noticed your location. Good memories there.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...51d07e5ffe.png

Greenville really is a great town.

I wouldn't pay a use or sales tax bringing my other vehicles into the state, because I already own them. Registration and/or property tax, sure, but I'd still be (theoretically) paying those taxes in SC for this vehicle anyway.

Side note - I did pay California sales tax on this vehicle when I bought it anyway, back in 2010.

California requires a person to pay the full amount of sales tax based on estimated value of any vehicle which is purchased in another state and then brought into CA within one year of purchase. In the context of the Montana question, this is relevant.

California also requires all persons to pay a registration fee when bringing a "nonresident vehicle" into CA from out of state, regardless of how long the vehicle has been owned. Again, The Montana scheme avoids this, which CA considers to be fraud.

CA sucks. Don't move to CA. I wanna move out of CA but have too much going on and too many people I care about here.