Exhaust laws in CA...
 

Curious.. I seem to remember some sort of law in this sunshine state that the outlet must be behind the rear axle. I am considering a way to do a turn down by the transmission, but make it look at least semi-legal...
Weight's a bitch and that exhaust is a lot of metal. Maybe a hollowed out cat bolted to the downpipe (for visual reasons if pulled over) and then a turn-down pipe bolted to that.. but is that just no way ok?
-Ryan

the laws here are a bitch. I have yet to see a miata get harrassed by the po-po's though. I'm sure as long as its not ridiculously loud you will not catch any shit for your exhaust proposal. I've been out with big groups of cars that were driving like assholes and got surrounded by cops and harrassed. One of the cops came up to me and asked "wtf are you doing here?" I replied with "just passing through officer"......he let me go with a " dont drive anywhere around these racer kids, they are nothing but trouble":giggle:

It does not have to exit behind the axle.
You are only allowed to change the cat if it fails.
You are allowed to change the catback but it must meet sound requirements. Not sure if you have to have a muffler in place, but I want to say that is a requirement.

That being said, I've driven around with straight headers with a big block 396 and wasn't harassed.

Anything pre-cat must be CARB certified
Cat can only be changed if it has failed
Catback is open, provided it doesn't exit on the side and it meets sound requirements (95dB).

You must have at least one muffler in place as well.

Hmm perhaps a 6" glasspack can = a muffler... haha. Is that 95 db at idle or 95 db at wot like a race track? I think this could be done... but I want to remove the exhaust and see how it sounds before I commit. Unfortunately, my car toes the line with looking like a 'ricer'.. I've been asked to pop the hood only twice in the past 3 years but on the chance that it happens again, I don't want it to be stupid loud all the time..
-Ryan

The fact you have had your hood popped EVER, is a bad thing.
In the last 4 years, I have never had my hood popped, and have been driving modified cars the entire time. I also have been pulled over/ticketed more than anyone I know.

years ago the wording of the vehicle code was " adequate muffler required "
I'm a minitrucker as well and the cool thing back in the day out there was to run a straight pipe and megaphone so naturaly we would get pulled over all of the time. I'm not sure if the wording has since changed though. you can actualy go to a CHP office and they will show you the code.

so the process would go like this:
act like idiot, get ticket.
go to CHP barracks and get tested (back then testing was at idle) and hope they don't ask you to rev it up.
if they did and you failed return the next day for another test, but this time you will have drilled a small hole about a foot inside of the tail pipe and proceeded to shove a bit of steel wool up the pipe holding it in place with a nail through that hole. of course you do this about a block away cause it makes your car run like shit.
get tested again and pass even when asked to rev it up.
get lectured for driving a dangerous contraption and ruinig your truck( thank you officer, yes I understand have a nice day sir)
pull out nail and leave shooting a sometimes firey wad of steel wool out of the pipe.

the code has allways been very open to interpretation. so in short what you can get away with depends largely on the officer that pulls you over and how bad of a day he's had before some idiot went blowing by him at 12,000 rpm and 190db

Haha, thanks for the input guys. For the record, I rarely do stupid stuff on the public roads any more, and both times I was asked to lift the hood I hadn't been flying by at 1200000 rpms...

First time was quite a while ago - I was doing 75 mph or so in the slow lane just flowing with traffic and next thing I knew I got lit up - the cop said I just happened to be the one he picked to pull over since quite a few people were going 75. Once I was pulled over and he saw the car he asked me to show him under the hood. I was N/A at the time and he gave me a funny look when he asked if the header that was wrapped in header wrap was stock and I said absolutely. He ticketed me for the 75 in 65.

The second time was a few months ago - a motorcycle CHP was sitting on the side of the road by an intersection. I was stopped at the intersection in a row of cars - I was maybe the third from the front. When the light turned green and we proceeded through the intersection he clearly intentionally pulled out behind me in front of the car that was behind me and pulled me over. He claimed that black smoke was coming out of my exhaust and so he pulled me over because that signified to him that my car was 'hopped up'. My car has never excreted any black smoke except for when I had a bad tune and was running 10:1 A/F in boost and that only did it when I floored it. I most certainly gaurantee I did NOT have black smoke coming from the car while I was sitting in traffic next to him. He just wanted to find out what was done to the car. This incident was the reason I just went through the fiasco with the CA smog Ref - I didn't have the CARB sticker for the turbo to show the CHP so he gave me a ticket for the turbo and told me to sort it out with a ref.

So yeah, I guess my miata is not so low-key as most / some of the cops here don't know what REAL crime is...

-Ryan

I see your sig pic. You are right, that isn't low key. But it looks good. :)

Florida is the sunshine state, pal.

California is the fascist state.

you're from neither so whats your point?

Just wondering how much the cops really know I have my CARB sticker for a greddy kit but they only thing from the kit is the turbo. Do I have to worry if a cop asks me to "pop the hood"?

Put exhaust on your shit. Don't be a ricer. Exhaust ain't that heavy. Turn up the boost if it worries you.

O ya I ran with the short cherry bomb turn down for awhile and its fairly loud, never got pulled over for it though. and it doesnt sound that good, but definatly cheap.

California is a big state. How the CHP views your car depends on where you live. In Los Angeles, no matter how much I mod my car, it will still be just a Miata. As long as I'm surrounded by the legions of modded out Honda/Acuras and the countless run of the mill Bimmers, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, the police will always have bigger fish to catch and fry.

that is VERY true.

Maybe with the budget crisis they will cut out the EPA:)

Pat, every time someone mentions weight your answer is to turn up the boost instead. No offense, but while that works for a street-only car, truth is an NB is a pig compared to a properly lightened NA, and 4,000 hp doesn't change how much weight the car has to fight when cornering and braking... as I am constantly trying to find the next thing to gain the upper edge in races as everyone's miatas continue to get faster and faster, clever weight savings are often the decisive factor.
-Ryan

You are fine. I specifically got my ticket for the turbo because I did NOT have the sticker - if I did have the sticker I could have had any turbo I wanted and the cop would not have known the sticker. Now that I have the sticker as well as a copy of the referee's certification in the car, I have no worries about trouble from the po' for the turbo, weather they ask me to pop it or not, regardless of the fact that I too have nothing but the actual turbo and manifold
left from the original kit.
-Ryan

sweet thanks man.