BuckyKatt

So I always look at modern cars which I'd like to modify, and one of the early dream killers is that in many cases, emissions inspection simply frowns on engine swaps and tuning. Obviously, its no fun to have a car that requires a mountain of paperwork and hassle to drive on the road. I'm not trying to circumvent the emissions inspection process and drive a dirty car... I want performance and passed emissions. For all of us who have actually read their emissions numbers, a supercharged LS3 G8 does not really pollute much differently than a stock Sunfire... so what difference does it make if the supercharged LS3 G8 drivetrain is put into a Sunfire, for example? I'm trying to stick with the spirit of the law here.

Disclaimer: this hypothetical project is just that. Regardless of your opinion ok the Sunfire, its the traditional big engine into little car situation. Lets assume that the LS3 G8 drivetrain can be installed in a Sunfire without affecting and stock G8 emissions parts or stock safety items. (We'll just skip over the extensive modifications needed to convert FWD to RWD, etc.)

For starters, I know that PCMs can be reprogrammed to match the VIN of the vehicle... how limited is that? Can a G8 LS3 PCM be given a Sunfire VIN?

Next, assuming the VIN in the OBD-II matches the VIN on the car, NJ, for example, passes a car if the OBD-II reads no codes... basically, the car does its own emissions test. Does this situation still work for a serious engine swap, as far as the IM-240 test goes?

Does anyone know what the engine swap guidelines are for NJ now that OBD-II basically dictates pass or fail on any car built after 1995?

Hopefully there is some hope here, otherwise, I'll continue dreaming about older cars that can hide behind 'historic' plates (no inspection).

BKNJ

Ed Wright

iTrader: (1)

This is hypothetical also:
I can put your name in there for a vin with some limitation.
There is a check sum for the vin, in the vin. You have to know whare that is and be able to correct it after the vin change.

If your using tuning software off the internet, it won't allow you to do that.

However, the data stream is not exactly the same for all PCMs or ECMs. Generic OBDII is supposed to be the same for all, and that may get you by smog ALDL tests.

I have not, and would not, try that. You need to know what to tell your scan tool to get data other than generic OBDII. Telling your LS3 ECM it's a sunfire, or giving it the Sunfire vin will get you some bogus data. I don't know if you could get by with that or not. I think I would be afraid to try it.

salemetro

iTrader: (5)

I'll speak from my personal experience here, but will not make a recommendation either way.

I have a vehicle that has a pcm from a 2002 Camaro in it, along with an LS based engine....and the car's vin swapped into the PCM. One of the things that I was concerned about, was trying to have a "no hassles" experience at the DEQ testing station....so I wanted everything to appear as OEM to the car as possible, all thing considered. When I went through the DEQ check last year, everything went fairly well...except that a couple of parameters could not be detected by the DEQ's main testing/scanning system. They had to "manually" scan the vehicle with a hand-held scanner (auto x-ray 6000) to obtain some of the required parameter information. I'm not sure if this was due to the vin swap in the PCM or not. Luckily, in my state, there are not visual inspections (currently). It could, however, become a problem for me in the future....depending on law changes. Another thing, is that I can never perform a "write entire" or "read entire" on the car's PCM when tuning with HPTuners, as HPT will not recognize the .bin as a valid match for the VIN. Not really a big issue for me.

Ed Wright

iTrader: (1)

That's what I meant about all data streams not being the same.

wait4me

iTrader: (10)

EFIlive will let you put in any vin you want for free with the scan tool or the tuning tool if that is what you are asking. It even has a button that tells you the checksum of the vin to put into the right spot if needed.

Remnant-of-VII

^this. As long as the chassis vin matches the pcm and the new motor retains all of its emissions crap on it, it should pass.

Ed Wright

iTrader: (1)

Sounds good, but won't always get you by.