CA Emissions Testing and your TR6

All, As a CA resident who successfully smogged his '74 TR6 yesterday in San Diego, I can give a fairly accurate description of what is required.

Smog stations carry out 3 tests; 1) a visual inspection - every smog station has a book published by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) which lists equipment that is to be found for a specific car for a specific year. The equipment must be correctly connected and functional. If the car does not pass visual, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.

The next stage is the idle test (about 1000 rpm), and here the computer is looking specifically at hydrocarbons (HC, in parts-per-million) and percent carbon-monoxide (CO). Other gases such as oxygen and carbon-dioxide are also measured, but are only used to test for leaks in the exhaust system (if you have a leaky exhaust, do not pass GO, do not......).

The third stage is a test at 2500 rpm. Here the same HC and CO values are tested.

In the table below, I list HC/CO pairs for the idle:2500-rpm test (this comes straight out of the CARB manual, and is only a guideline for testers and consumers. The decision to pass or fail a car is made by a computer in Sacramento, not at the smog station). I have given two time periods below for cars made between 1971-1974 and 1966-1967. The column "Pass/Fail" is the maximum emissions allowed. The column "Gross Polluter" is what you definately DONT want to exceed, and the column "Average" is based upon actual vehicle tests.

Years      Pass/Fail          Gross Polluter             Average
           Idle:2500-rpm      Idle:2500-rpm              Idle:2500-rpm
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
1971-74    550/5.0:400/4.0    800/7.5:650/6.5            147/1.8:123/1.4

1966-67    700/5.5:600/4.4    950/8.0:850/7.0            212/2.3:182/1.7

"Rags" passed the idle:2500-rpm tests with the HC/CO values of 129/4.44:32/1.16 (required rebuilding the carbs and new main metering jets).

Having said all of that, cars that are "imported" from out of state, modified engines and non-matching-number engines cannot go to any smog station, instead they must go direct to the State-run Referee Station. A fail at this point means that your car can never be registered in the *fair* state of CA.

Hope this helps. Shane Ingate Clean TR6 in San Diego